Technology and culture /

Batteau's prologue distinguishes between tools and technology, defines culture from an anthropological perspective, and states that his objective is to develop a unified framework to analyze technology and culture. The author surveys the debates around technology and refocuses on modern technology, which he defines as increasing complexity, autonomy, and connectedness while bringing energy, capability, and abundance to modern life through large-scale, networked systems. Chapter 3 explores how governments and corporations have achieved military, diplomatic, and/or competitive advantage through technological innovation. A discussion of the failures that erode trust in technology and failures of culture to keep pace with technology shifts the analysis to human factors in technology use, specifically in artificial life and intelligence, and in virtual reality. Batteau (Wayne State Univ.) offers anthropology, with its skills in deciphering cultures, as a tool to understanding cultural differences, the authority of technology, and boundaries between culture and technology. The author's mission is to integrate values, networks, evolution, diffusion, and identity of technology and culture in order to increase knowledge about them while beginning to imagine a post-technological society where humanity is technology's master. Summing Up: Recommended. Most levels/libraries. W. K. Bauchspies Georgia Institute of Technology