Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents -- Translator’s Note -- Introduction: the Past, Present and Future of “Technology,” circa 1800 -- Part 1: From technologia to Technologie -- Essay: Overview of the Entry on “Technologie” from Johann Heinrich Zedler’s Universal Lexicon -- Translation: Zedler’s Lexicon Entry, “Technologie” -- Essay: Johann Beckmann (1739–1811): Technological Objects, Practices, and Ideas -- Translation: Beckmann’s Preface to the Guide to Technology, 1st Edition (1777) -- Translation: Introduction to the Guide to Technology, 1st Edition (1777) -- Part 2: Technological Orders -- Essay: Two Genres, Two Approaches to Technology: a Dictionary and a System -- Translation: Johann Beckmann’s Preface to the Technological Dictionary, 1st Edition (1781) -- Translation: Johann Jacobsson’s Preface to the Technological Dictionary, 1st Edition (1781) -- Translation: Introduction to Georg Lamprecht’s Instruction Book of Technology, 1st Edition (1787) -- Part 3: General vs. Historical Technology, circa 1800 -- Essay: Technology’s Two Perspectives: the General and the Historical -- Translation: Johann Beckmann’s Draft of a General Technology, 1st Edition (1806) -- Translation: Preface to Johann Poppe’s History of Technology, 1st Edition (1807) -- Translation: General Introduction to Johann Poppe’s History of Technology, 1st Edition (1807) -- Bibliography -- Index.

What is technology? When we grapple with this question, we try to understand something fundamental about humanity, given that technical objects and practices inform every aspect of our lives. The focus in this study on late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Germany underscores a pivotal moment in technology’s conceptual history and offers a fresh perspective. The translations and interpretive essays in this volume show how those writers engaged with technology reflected on its history and innovations even as they engaged in more speculative thinking. Their work, definitive of a historical epoch, can still speak to us today.

English

Description based on print version record.