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Chargement... Inventing Accuracy: A Historical Sociology of Nuclear Missile Guidance (Inside Technology)par Donald MacKenzie
University Presses (47) Chargement...
Inscrivez-vous à LibraryThing pour découvrir si vous aimerez ce livre Actuellement, il n'y a pas de discussions au sujet de ce livre. This is an exhaustive account of the development of nuclear missile guidance technology in the US and the USSR. It is mostly dry, and (unless this is your area of interest) exceedingly detailed. However, the last couple of chapters are worth plowing through the details: MacKenzie explains, with solid data, how "the social" and "the technical" are part of the same web, how facts are constructed in science; and how institutions and the people that conform them navigate through political and technological issues. aucune critique | ajouter une critique
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"Mackenzie has achieved a masterful synthesis of engrossing narrative, imaginative concepts, historical perspective, and social concern." Donald MacKenzie follows one line of technology--strategic ballistic missile guidance through a succession of weapons systems to reveal the workings of a world that is neither awesome nor unstoppable. He uncovers the parameters, the pressures, and the politics that make up the complex social construction of an equally complex technology. Aucune description trouvée dans une bibliothèque |
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Google Books — Chargement... GenresClassification décimale de Melvil (CDD)358.174Social sciences Public Administration, Military Science Air forces and other advanced weaponry ArtilleryClassification de la Bibliothèque du CongrèsÉvaluationMoyenne:
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I am young enough that all of my historical memory is post-Cold War (although I was born before it ended, I didn't understand what was happening until well after the fall of the Berlin Wall). This book is therefore a fascinating look into nuclear politics and technology before the Cold War ended. The author has a short epilogue explaining that the Cold War ended pretty much as the book went to press.
The technology pre-MEMS and pre-really good GPS is fascinating. I found the interplay between accuracy and nuclear strategy fascinating (you can't take out a missile silo if you can't guarantee that an ICBM will actually hit within a mile or so of the silo). The book also emphasizes that politics cannot be disconnected from technology (something that I wish Enrico Fermi had understood before taking the genie out of the bottle, assuming that science for its own sake would be enough of a motivation to invent the nuclear weapon to begin with).
I would not recommend this book unless you find any of these topics very interesting, as the book takes a lot of effort to get through. It is very exhaustive, which is both its strength and its weakness. ( )