Melvin Kranzberg (1917–1995)

Melvin Kranzberg is a historian known primarily for his contribution as primary founder of the history of technology as a discipline. He also founded the professional Society for the History of Technology (SHOT), serving as first editor of its journal, Technology and Culture, as well as SHOT afficher plus secretary (1959--79) and president (1983--84). Kranzberg also has been an active supporter and proponent of other STS professional organizations, such as the Society of Philosophy and Technology and the National Association of Science, Technology and Society, from which he was initial recipient of a NASTS Honorary Lifetime Membership. Kranzberg enjoys an active retirement of lecturing, writing, and serving on numerous professional organization advisory boards, as well as being Callaway Professor Emeritus of the History of Technology at Georgia Institute of Technology. Kranzberg earned a Ph.D. in modern European history from Harvard University in 1942. His initial books, The Siege of Paris, 1870--71 (1950) and 1848: A Turning Point? (1959) reflect Kranzberg's Ivy League background. In his teaching and research, however, Kranzberg increasingly realized the important role that technology has played in historical development. His interests then rapidly turned in that direction. Among his books, Kranzberg is perhaps best known for the two-volume Technology in Western Civilization (1967), which has served as a core text in the history of technology for a generation of students. Kranzberg's broad interests are evident in other works, ranging from such topics as work and technological innovation to energy and ethics. His central theme has been "the significance in human affairs of the history of technology and the value of the contextual approach in understanding technical developments," codified as Kranzberg's First Law: "Technology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutral." This theme and Kranzberg's role in its development are reflected in two volumes. One is John M. Staudenmaier's Technology's Storytellers: Reweaving the Human Fabric (1985), which analyzes the first 20 years of the journal Technology and Culture. The other is edited by Stephen H. Cutcliffe and Robert C. Post, In Context: History and the History of Technology---Essays in Honor of Melvin Kranzberg (1989), a Festschrift collection that reflects on the history of technology as a discipline. (Bowker Author Biography) afficher moins