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OverviewThe Canal du Midi, which threads through southwestern France and links the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, was an astonishing feat of seventeenth-century engineering--in fact, it was technically impossible according to the standards of its day. Impossible Engineering takes an insightful and entertaining look at the mystery of its success as well as the canal's surprising political significance. The waterway was a marvel that connected modern state power to human control of nature just as surely as it linked the ocean to the sea. The Canal du Midi is typically characterized as the achievement of Pierre-Paul Riquet, a tax farmer and entrepreneur for the canal. Yet Chandra Mukerji argues that it was a product of collective intelligence, depending on peasant women and artisans--unrecognized heirs to Roman traditions of engineering--who came to labor on the waterway in collaboration with military and academic supervisors. Ironically, while Louis XIV and his treasury minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert used propaganda to present France as a new Rome, the Canal du Midi was being constructed with unrecognized classical methods. Still, the result was politically potent.As Mukerji shows, the project took land and power from local nobles, using water itself as a silent agent of the state to disrupt traditions of local life that had served regional elites. Impossible Engineering opens a surprising window into the world of seventeenth-century France and illuminates a singular work of engineering undertaken to empower the state through technical conquest of nature. Full Product DetailsAuthor: Chandra MukerjiPublisher: Princeton University Press Imprint: Princeton University Press Volume: 65 Dimensions: Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.80cm , Length: 23.50cm Weight: 0.624kg ISBN: 9780691140322ISBN 10: 0691140324 Pages: 328 Publication Date: 26 July 2009 Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , General/trade , Tertiary & Higher Education , Professional & Vocational Format: Hardback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: Temporarily unavailable  The supplier advises that this item is temporarily unavailable. It will be ordered for you and placed on backorder. Once it does come back in stock, we will ship it out to you. Language: English Table of ContentsReviews[T]his is a scintillating blend of cultural, political, and technological history. -- Choice Mukerji opens a new chapter in the history of the Canal du Midi, aiming to deepen understanding of its design and construction, and also of the related social and gender patterns. Furthermore, this important book also both stresses the concept of distributed knowledge/collective intelligence, and provides a deeper understanding of the impersonal power of structures. Mukeji demonstrates the necessity to pursue studies such as this with an open mind and a critical attitude. -- Michel Cotte, Reviews in History [T]his is a scintillating blend of cultural, political, and technological history. Choice Author InformationChandra Mukerji is professor of communication and science studies at the University of California, San Diego. She is the author of Territorial Ambitions and the Gardens of Versailles, A Fragile Power: Scientists and the State (Princeton), and From Graven Images: Patterns of Modern Materialism. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |
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