Beyond Engineering

by Robert Pool

Every now and then a book comes along with the power to reshape completely how people think about a subject, to teach them to see it in a way that is novel yet simultaneously so natural that they wonder how they ever could have missed it. Beyond Engineering by Robert Pool is such a book. The traditional view of technology is that it is the product of engineers and inventors, developed in a rational fashion according to arcane scientific principles that are best left to the techo-nerds. But if you look closely enough at the history of any invention, Pool says, you will find that factors unrelated to engineering have an equal and sometimes greater power. In his wide-ranging volume, he traces developments in nuclear energy, automobiles, light bulbs, commercial electricity, and personal computers, among others, to show how historical, political, cultural, organizational, economic, and psychological factors all influence the path a technology takes. Pool demonstrates how seemingly minor dec