Machines as the measure of men

by Michael Adas

Adas explores the ways in which European perceptions of their scientific and technological superiority shaped their interactions with people overseas. Beginning with the early decades of overseas expansion in the 16th century, he traces the impact of scientific and technological advances on European attitudes towards Asians and Africans and on their policies for dealing with colonized societies. Adas examines British and French thinking in the 19th century, when scientific and technological measures of human worth shaped their notion of racial supremacy and "civilizing mission" ideology, and why after World War I they rejected this guage of human worth, and looked for alternative measures. ISBN 0-8014-2303-1: $29.95.