Society and Technological Change

The content of this book is exactly as the title sounds and was an easy read. I needed it for a college class and the Index was super helpful for those exams.

This book should be listed in the next volume of Society and Technological Change as a war crime. Jesus, while reading this dumpster pile I was actually looking forward to doing my math homework afterward, which should really give you an idea. Chapters are full of nonsense non-statements where the author will go on and on and on and on about some theory only to at the last paragraph back peddle and basically say: "That might be true but it's not!" Furthermore, every chapter is full of subsections that only loosely connect to each other. It kinda feels like the author just wrote as the ideas flowed into their head. I could go on, but why are you even reading this review? The only reason anyone on the planet has ever bought this landfill padder is because they had to. In summary, I hope whoever made this book Stubbs their toe and spills their spaghetti all over their desk.

class was canceled

This book is very interesting and informative. Learning about the ways technology impacts society and vice versa has been very eye opening.

Do you want a love letter to free market capitalism? I am a Sociologist and am using this text for a course- the professor who taught before me used it and while he warned me he didn't WARN me. I'll need to add a significant amount of outside reading AND cut full chapters and sections from this text to make it useful. Also, if this is really meant for college students write like it is! This could be used for high school easily- it reminds me more of a history book out of Texas than anything Ive taught with before or was taught from in my undergrad years. My biggest problem, however, is the lack of citation of statements of "fact". The ethnocentrism for Western culture also was boggling- I am as American as it comes and even I can respect the technological advancements made by China and this author puts them down over and over. I get that this person has a personal opinion, but that has no place in something meant to be used as a textbook.Edit: It gets worse. My dude seriously says that most people don't have to work long days in the modern world to earn a living. The privilege of the author is disgusting, he is not capable of critical thought and I am surprised he was ever published. The chapter on healthcare actually says that 50% of profits from healthcare go to research...only place I could find that information was from a lobby. It was not cited in the book. Don't buy this and don't use it. I have scrapped it for the rest of the class and am providing free resources to my students along with an apology. Thank goodness this guy has become emeritus, he does not belong in front of students.

Needed it for my sociology class. The author beautifully presented the content.