Overview

Engineering the Revolution documents the forging of a new relationship between technology and politics in Revolutionary France, and the inauguration of a distinctively modern form of the “technological life.”  Here, Ken Alder rewrites the history of the eighteenth century as the total history of one particular artifact—the gun—by offering a novel and historical account of how material artifacts emerge as the outcome of political struggle. By expanding the “political” to include conflict over material objects, this volume rethinks the nature of engineering rationality, the origins of mass production, the rise of meritocracy, and our interpretation of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution.

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9780226012643

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Reviews

A work of stunning originality.... An important contribution to a variety of fields. - Ted Porter. A triumph. It deserves to be read widely, and not just as an inquiry into the origins of modern France. - Donald MacKenzie, London Review of Books. In the history of technology, one of the very best books is Ken Alder's Engineering the Revolution, about the ways in which new engineering practices both emerged from and shaped the ideals of the French Revolution. - Peter Galison, American Scientist. Ken Alder's study of the relations between artifacts, technical life, and politics constitutes a model study in its genre. - Terry Shinn, Social Studies of Science.

Author Information

Ken Alder is the Milton H. Wilson Professor of the Humanities and professor of history at Northwestern University. He is the author of The Measure of All Things: The Seven-Year Odyssey and Hidden Error that Transformed the World and The Lie Detectors: The History of an American Obsession.

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