Choice Review

If you look through the business pages of any newspaper, you'll see an exceedingly narrow definition of technology. It is strictly IT and primarily software: nothing about plows, sewing machines, or cars. Fortunately, Headrick (emer., Roosevelt Univ.), a veteran historian of technology (The Tools of Empire, CH, Nov '81), restores a broader definition that enhances the value of this wide-ranging survey. Perhaps too broad--the author includes most aspects of material culture--but it suits the New Oxford World History series goals of highlighting major trends and stimulating thinking. Organized in eight chronological chapters from 4000 BCE to 2007 CE, the book moves briskly among regions and particular technologies, with just enough lucid background material to avoid confusion. Agricultural innovation rightly receives sustained attention in light of its essential role in human history. Headrick devotes nearly half the text to developments following the 18th-century Industrial Revolution, but hard choices and omissions are inevitable in a short work like this. The conclusion, although not new, cannot be overstated: "Technology is no longer a means of survival in the face of a hostile nature but a joyride at the expense of nature" (p. 148). Summing Up: Recommended. College and large public libraries; AP high school students and above. T. P. Johnson University of Massachusetts, Boston