Culture’s Engine

‘With sensitivity and detailed illustrations, ranging from the prehistoric to the current, William Gosling explores, in a unified way, the many and subtle aspects in which technology emerges from and drives our culture.’

—Sir Michael Berry, University of Bristol, UK

Culture’s Engine offers an insightful and penetrating analysis of the enduring relationship between technology and society. William Gosling explores in absorbing historical detail how humans have experienced change through a sequence of technological revolutions, each giving rise to new social organisation, which in turn influences the shape and timing of the next such revolution. Gosling argues that it is through this dialogue that successful technology sets the direction and pace of all cultural evolution. The state of technology at any time is the major influence on the world, and not just the material world. This book then is not a history of technology, still less of science. It fundamentally questions how technology and social forces interact, leading to these successive revolutions and their outcomes. 

William Gosling is a British electrical engineer, Emeritus Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Bath, and pioneer of system design in electrical engineering.