Machines as the measure of men : science, technology, and ideologies of western dominance / Michael Adas ; with a new preface.

Over the past five centuries, advances in Western understanding of and control over the material world have strongly influenced European responses to non-Western peoples and cultures. In Machines as the Measure of Men, Michael Adas explores the ways in which European perceptions of their scientific...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Adas, Michael, 1943- (Author)
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2014.
Edition:2014 edition, with a new preface.
Series:Cornell studies in comparative history.
Subjects:
Online Access:Click for online access

MARC

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245 1 0 |a Machines as the measure of men :  |b science, technology, and ideologies of western dominance /  |c Michael Adas ; with a new preface. 
250 |a 2014 edition, with a new preface. 
264 1 |a Ithaca :  |b Cornell University Press,  |c 2014. 
264 4 |c ©2014 
300 |a 1 online resource (xx, 430 pages) 
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490 1 |a Cornell studies in comparative history 
500 |a "First published 1989"--Title page verso 
504 |a Includes bibliographical references and index. 
588 0 |a Print version record. 
505 0 |a Machines as the Measure of Men -- CONTENTS -- Maps and Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Preface to the 2014 Edition -- Introduction -- PART I. BEFORE THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION -- 1. First Encounters: Impressions of Material Culture in an Age of Exploration -- Technologyâ€?Perceptions of Backwardness; Qualified Praise -- “Natural Philosophyâ€?â€?Illiteracy and Faulty Calendars -- Scientific and Technological Convergence and the First Hierarchies of Humankind -- 2. The Ascendancy of Science: Shifting Views of Non-Western Peoples in the Era of the Enlightenment 
505 8 |a Model of Clay: The Rise and Decline of Sinophilism in Enlightenment ThoughtAncient Glories, Modern Ruins: The Orientalist Discovery of Indian Learning -- African Achievement and the Debate over the Abolition of the Slave Trade -- Scientific Gauges and the Spirit of the Times -- PART II. THE AGE OF INDUSTRIALIZATION -- 3. Global Hegemony and the Rise of Technology as the Main Measure of Human Achievement -- Africa: Primitive Tools and the Savage Mind -- India: The Retreat of Orientalism -- China: Despotism and Decline 
505 8 |a Material Mastery as a Prerequisite of Civilized Life4. Attributes of the Dominant: Scientific and Technological Foundations of the Civilizing Mission -- Perceptions of Man and Nature as Gauges of Western Uniqueness and Superiority -- The Machine as Civilizer -- Displacement and Revolution: Marx on the Impact of Machines in Asia -- Time, Work, and Discipline -- Space, Accuracy, and Uniformity -- Worlds Apart: The Case of Ye Ming-chen -- 5. The Limits of Diffusion: Science and Technology in the Debate over the African and Asian Capacity for Acculturation 
505 8 |a The First Generations of ImproversThe Search for Scientific and Technological Proofs of Racial Inequality -- Qualifying the Civilizing Mission: Racists versus Improvers at the Turn of the Century -- Missing the Main Point: Science and Technology in Nineteenth-Century Racist Thought -- PART III. THE TWENTIETH CENTURY -- 6. The Great War and the Assault on Scientific and Technological Measures of Human Worth -- The Specter of Asia Industrialized -- Trench Warfare and the Crisis of Western Civilization 
505 8 |a Challenges to the Civilizing Mission and the Search for Alternative Measures of Human WorthEpilogue: Modernization Theory and the Revival of the Technological Standard -- Index 
520 |a Over the past five centuries, advances in Western understanding of and control over the material world have strongly influenced European responses to non-Western peoples and cultures. In Machines as the Measure of Men, Michael Adas explores the ways in which European perceptions of their scientific and technological superiority shaped their interactions with people overseas. Adopting a broad, comparative perspective, he analyzes European responses to the cultures of sub-Saharan Africa, India, and China, cultures that they judged to represent lower levels of material mastery and social organization. Beginning with the early decades of overseas expansion in the sixteenth century, Adas traces the impact of scientific and technological advances on European attitudes toward Asians and Africans and on their policies for dealing with colonized societies. He concentrates on British and French thinking in the nineteenth century, when, he maintains, scientific and technological measures of human worth played a critical role in shaping arguments for the notion of racial supremacy and the "civilizing mission" ideology which were used to justify Europe's domination of the globe. Finally, he examines the reasons why many Europeans grew dissatisfied with and even rejected this gauge of human worth after World War I, and explains why it has remained important to Americans. Showing how the scientific and industrial revolutions contributed to the development of European imperialist ideologies, Machines as the Measure of Men highlights the cultural factors that have nurtured disdain for non-Western accomplishments and value systems. It also indicates how these attitudes, in shaping policies that restricted the diffusion of scientific knowledge, have perpetuated themselves, and contributed significantly to chronic underdevelopment throughout the developing world. Adas's far-reaching and provocative book will be compelling reading for all who are concerned about the history of Western imperialism and its legacies. First published to wide acclaim in 1989, Machines as the Measure of Men is now available in a new edition that features a preface by the author that discusses how subsequent developments in gender and race studies, as well as global technology and politics, enter into conversation with his original arguments 
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