Technology and Society

Abstract

WE are repeatedly told by those who look beyond the passing events chronicled from day to day that the structure of human society is changing with a rapidity hitherto unimagined, that the world after the War will be a completely different world from that which we knew before. In this there is probably a large measure of truth, but though the War has undoubtedly speeded up the rate of change, the change was inevitable for other reasons. It is explained by the march of technological invention. 'March' seems an inadequate word to describe what has taken place during the brief lifetime of the present older generation-it is rather a flight which leaves one breathless. There is no more ruthless, but-if wisely directed-ultimately beneficent iconoclast than invention, no more powerful lever for moving nations out of the deep ruts of habit and convention into which, if left lethargic, they tend to sink. We are being so lifted and shaken now, and it is as well to realize what is happening if we are to profit by the experience.

Technology and Society

The Influence of Machines in the United States. By S. McKee Rosen and Laura Rosen. Pp. xiv + 474. (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1941.) 12s. 6d. net.