These thirteen essays explore a crucial historical question that has been notoriously hard to pin down: To what extent, and by what means, does a society's technology determine its political, social, economic, and cultural forms?Karl Marx launched the modern debate on determinism with his provocative remark that "the hand-mill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill, society with the industrial capitalist," and a classic article by Robert Heilbroner (reprinted here) renewed the debate within the context of the history of technology. This book clarifies the debate and carries it forward.Marx's position has become embedded in our culture, in the form of constant reminders as to how our fast-changing technologies will alter our lives. Yet historians who have looked closely at where technologies really come from generally support the proposition that technologies are not autonomous but are social products, susceptible to democratic controls. The issue is crucial for democratic theory. These essays tackle it head-on, offering a deep look at all the shadings of determinism and assessing determinist models in a wide variety of historical contexts.Contributors : Bruce Bimber. Richard W. Bulliet. Robert L. Heilbroner. Thomas P. Hughes. Leo Marx. Thomas J. Misa. Peter C. Perdue. Philip Scranton. Merritt Roe Smith. Michael L. Smith. John M. Staudenmaier. Rosalind Williams.

这是一部接地气的科技史，它着眼于无缘奖金和主流关注的科技（如波纹铁皮、人力三轮车、避孕套等）。这些器具在日常生活中显得平淡无奇，大部分是相当过时的老科技，或者是老科技结合地方需求改造后的产物，但长时间以来非常好用、不可或缺。
跳脱传统科技史的叙事藩篱，作者将目光投向模仿改造、保养维修等一贯被认为缺少技术含量但实际上影响深远的环节。通过数据对比和史料分析，严肃的科技史学者验证了你在实际生活中的感觉：被吹捧得新奇酷炫的科技或设备，往往水分满满不太实用。在科技的更替换新中，国族政策、军事目的、市场需求、企业利润，种种以往科技史不太考量的因素，可能比科研机构对科技的影响更多。
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一本书读完之后，我一般会把它塞回书架吃灰，转赠给朋友或者用来垫桌脚，但这本书是个例外。它属于用得着的书，我可以双手并举它，但凡遇见一个技术怪咖，“极客”或喜新厌旧的未来学家，就劈头盖脸地向他砸过去。
——西蒙·詹金斯，《卫报》专栏作家
作者的创新之处在于，聚焦在我们真正在使用的科技，而不是那些可能稍纵即逝却声称全新的科技事物。
——《每日邮报》
这是一部重要又好读的作品，大卫·艾杰顿用全新的眼光审视了科技本来的样子。他没有背诵发明史上那一长串尽人皆知的英雄伟迹，也没有理会那些一直在承诺却从未兑现的科技突破，相反，他强调日常世界的科技。要活在科技时代，这些日常科技恰恰是不可或缺的重要部分。
——亨利·波卓斯基，《设计，人类的本性》作者
艾杰顿是一位通过经济学家的眼睛来观察历史的研究者。他既能给出V-2火箭的成本效益分析，也能挖掘出成百上千段像还在使用的人力车、肉品加工企业的屠宰作业线这样的故事。他让我们关注实际发生的历史，关注其中真实存在的利弊对比，他以这类细节驳倒了大量的科技神话（其中包括特氟龙、DDT、原子弹、摩托动力等），帮助厘清你的思路。
——戴尔德丽·麦克洛斯基，伊利诺伊大学芝加哥分校历史与经济学教授

The richly told narrative of the Silicon Valley generation that launched five major high-tech industries in seven years, laying the foundation for today’s technology-driven world.
At a time when the five most valuable companies on the planet are high-tech firms and nearly half of Americans say they cannot live without their cell phones, Troublemakers reveals the untold story of how we got here. This is the gripping tale of seven exceptional men and women, pioneers of Silicon Valley in the 1970s and early 1980s. Together, they worked across generations, industries, and companies to bring technology from Pentagon offices and university laboratories to the rest of us. In doing so, they changed the world.
In Troublemakers, historian Leslie Berlin introduces the people and stories behind the birth of the Internet and the microprocessor, as well as Apple, Atari, Genentech, Xerox PARC, ROLM, ASK, and the iconic venture capital firms Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. In the space of only seven years and thirty-five miles, five major industries—personal computing, video games, biotechnology, modern venture capital, and advanced semiconductor logic—were born.
During these same years, the first ARPANET transmission came into a Stanford lab, the university began licensing faculty innovations to businesses, and the Silicon Valley tech community began mobilizing to develop the lobbying clout and influence that have become critical components of modern American politics. In other words, these were the years when one of the most powerful pillars of our modern innovation and political systems was first erected.
Featured among well-known Silicon Valley innovators like Steve Jobs, Regis McKenna, Larry Ellison, and Don Valentine are Mike Markkula, the underappreciated chairman of Apple who owned one-third of the company; Bob Taylor, who kick-started the Arpanet and masterminded the personal computer; software entrepreneur Sandra Kurtzig, the first woman to take a technology company public; Bob Swanson, the cofounder of Genentech; Al Alcorn, the Atari engineer behind the first wildly successful video game; Fawn Alvarez, who rose from an assembler on a factory line to the executive suite; and Niels Reimers, the Stanford administrator who changed how university innovations reach the public. Together, these troublemakers rewrote the rules and invented the future.

科学革命的一个成果是，人们开始设想一种研究政府、个体行为和社会的社会科学，其运作方式能与新兴的自然科学相媲美。这样便启动了这两个领域之间漫长而复杂的双向互动，时至今日仍然影响着学术和公共政策。本书从科学史的视角考察了自然科学在概念、原理或方法上对社会科学产生的巨大影响，以及科学革命时期自然科学与社会科学的关系，为这个鲜有人问津的学术领域提供了重要资料。
以科学史的眼光重新审视社会科学与自然科学之间的关系，通过丰富的历史细节展现了现代自然科学在概念和方法上对社会科学产生的巨大影响，并引发我们思考二者真正意义上的“互动”。
——李猛，北京大学哲学系教授
谈物质世界和社会世界各自是什么的著作很多，谈自然科学和社会科学互动的著作很少，像这样的经典就更少。
——朱天飚，浙江大学人文高等研究院教授、常务副院长

★《技术的本质》是复杂性科学奠基人、首屈一指的技术思想家、“熊彼特奖”得主布莱恩•阿瑟所创建的一套关于技术产生和进化的系统性理论，本书是打开“技术黑箱”的钥匙，它用平实的语言将技术最本质的思想娓娓道来。
★技术，是一个异常美丽的主题，它不动声色地创造了我们的财富，成就了经济的繁荣，改变了我们存在的方式。尽管技术如此重要，却少有人在快节奏的生活中停下来深入思考技术。我们了解技术的原理，却不知道它们从何而来。我们深思技术的意义，追问技术到底能否决定人类的历史，但是关于“技术”到底是什么，它是如何形成的，我们并没有达成共识。
★布莱恩•阿瑟对上述问题进行了解答，作者构建了关于技术的理论体系，阐明了技术的本质及其进化机制。《技术的本质》是技术思想领域的开创性作品，它不同于一般的流行读物或学术著作，对于商业创新和经济发展而言都有非凡的意义。布莱恩•阿瑟的思想是硅谷亿万资金运行的基础，如果能够真正读懂本书，不论是普通读者、商业领袖还是学术研究者，都将受益匪浅。