Tony Fry, Anne-Marie Willis, Lisa Norton ...272 pages -
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic; (March, 2015) ...
Language: English -
ISBN-10: 0857854801 -
ISBN-13: 978-0857854803 ...
Steel has, over centuries, played a crucial
role in shaping our material, and in particular, urban landscapes. This
books undertakes a cultural and ecological history of the material,
examining the relationship between steel and design at a micro and macro
level – in terms of both what it has been used to design and how it has
functioned as a 'world-making force'. The research for the book
is informed by diverse sources including industry journals, contemporary
accounts and technical literature – all framed by rich, early accounts
of iron and steel making from the middle ages to the opening of the
industrial age, and most notably, the crucial works of Vannoccio
Biringuccio, Georgius Agricola, Andrew Ure and Harry Scrivenor. In
contrast, trans-cultural accounts of the history of metallurgy from
eminent sinologists and cultural historians like Joseph Needham and
G.E.R. Lloyd are used. Readings on the pre-history and history of
science, as well as histories and philosophies technology from scholars
such as Siegfried Giedion, Merritt Roe Smith, L.T.C Rolt, Robert B.
Gordon inform the analysis. Social and economic history from historians
such as Eric Hobsbawn, William T. Hogan and David Brody are consulted;
labour process theory is also examined, particularly the influential
writings of F.W. Taylor in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and
his contemporary critics, like David Nobel and Harry Braverman. Many
other disciples also inform the account: histories of urban design and
architecture, transport and military history, environmental history and
geography.