The 13 essays in this book draw on a wide array of case studies, from cooking stoves to missile systems, from 15th­century Portugal to today's AI labs - to outline an original research program based on a synthesis of ideas from the social studies of science and the history of technology.

Technology and Culture is the preeminent journal for the history of technology. Drawing on scholarship in diverse disciplines, Technology and Culture publishes insightful pieces intended for general readers as well as specialists. Readers include engineers, anthropologists, sociologists, museum curators, archivists, historians, and others. In addition to scholarly essays, each issue features 30- 40 book reviews and reviews of new museum exhibitions. To illuminate important debates and draw attention to specific topics, the journal occasionally publishes thematic issues. Recent special issues have focused on biomedical technology, patents and inventions, ecology, engineering in the twentieth century, and gender and technology.

The advent of email and texting has dramatically changed the way we communicate. In essence, we have lost "touch" in our dealings with each other. This change may have been speeded by newer technologies, but telegraphs and telephones had a great impact in our perceptions of time and place. Before mass communication, the way we ordered and embedded knowledge and the possibilities of social interaction were defined by the extended human experience of living in towns. Can this experience be replicated with new technologies? The topics discussed include Lines of Communication in Medieval Dublin/Places of Power: The Spreading of Official Information and the Social Uses of Space in Fifteenth-Century Paris/Ferry services and Social Life in Early Modern Norwegian Towns/Networking Ireland in the Nineteenth-century: The Role of Cartography/Harbor, Rail and Telegraph: The Post Office and Communication in Nineteenth-century Dublin/The Tramway and the Urban Development of Zagreb in the Period of Modernization/Migrant Development of Communication Space in Sydney

In 2011, amid the popular uprising against Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, the government sought in vain to shut down the Internet-based social networks of its people. WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange has been branded “public enemy number one” by some in the United States for posting material on the World Wide Web that concerns airstrikes in Iraq, US diplomatic communications, and other sensitive matters.   In Wiki at War, James Jay Carafano explains why these and other Internet-born initiatives matter and how they are likely to affect the future face of war, diplomacy, and domestic politics. “The war for winning dominance over social networks and using that dominance to advantage is already underway,” Carafano writes in this extremely timely analysis of the techno-future of information and the impact of social networking via the Internet. Drawing on his extensive knowledge of history and defense strategy, Carafano creates a cogent analysis of what is truly new about the “new media,” and what is simply a recasting of human warfare in contemporary forms.   Wiki at War is written in a lively, accessible style that will make this technological development comprehensible and engaging for general readers without sacrificing the book’s usefulness to specialists. Outlining the conditions under which a difference in degree becomes a difference in kind, detailing how ancient wisdom can still apply to national security decisions, and examining the conditions under which new expertise is required to wage effective diplomacy or successful military strategy, Carafano casts in stark relief the issues that face political, military, and social leaders in trying to manage and control information, in both the international and domestic arenas. Wiki at War affords stimulating thought about and definitive discussion of this vital emerging topic.