Book Description
Following the bestselling Celestial Gallery, comes a portable alter and beautifully oversized meditation cards which include new and inspired insights, prayers and blessings from the wisdom journals of visionary Nepali thangka artisan Romio Shrestha. Never before rendered in this prayerful format, keys to the offerings of the divine deities- including Buddha Sakyamuni, Green Tara, White Tara, Amitabha and more – honored in these magnificent scroll paintings can be discovered through guided practice and meditation.
Book Description
This is a history of the machine and a critical study of its effects on civilization. Mumford has drawn on every aspect of life to explain the machine and to trace its social results. "An extraordinarily wide-ranging, sensitive, and provocative book about a subject upon which philosophers have so far shed but little light" (Journal of Philosophy). Index; illustrations.
Customer Reviews:
An invaluable intellectual and cultural history of technology.......2006-08-08
Lewis Mumford's, Technics and Civilization, may be one of the most important and influential works concerning technological progress in Western Civilization and its cultural and environmental effects. The study covers a wide area of historical past stretching from the Roman Empire all the way to the present (1934). The importance of Mumford's study lies in the fact that it is not just another technophilic antiquarian study of technological improvement but rather it is an intelligent and highly critical look at the cultural development that gave rise to the machine and, from there, a critical study of how the "progress" of the machine affected the culture it was developing within. Mumford shows how the progression of the machine has affected nearly every aspect of human society including but not limited to sexuality, economy, ecology, warfare, occurrence of disease, and medicine.
The terminology surrounding matters of technology is not firmly defined and usually becomes a question of post-structural analysis when the meanings of these words are debated by academics in various fields of study. One of the main areas of confusion has been over the meaning of the word "tool" and the meaning of the word "machine." To quell confusion over the meaning of his own study, Mumford has given each word his own definition. According to Mumford: "[t]he tool lends it self to manipulation" while "[t]he machine lends it self to automatic action" (p.10). These definitions are important for understanding the meaning behind Mumford's study.
Mumford traces the cultural origins of the first machine, the mechanical clock, to the influences of monasticism and the Catholic teachings. The Church teachings of the early millennium stressed an extreme denial of the body which was viewed as sinful and polluted with the profanities of the earthly realm. Mumford believed that this denial of the body led to the growth of hatred for the organic which in turn fostered a cultural admiration for the machine as something that was disassociated from a polluted organic nature. Thus, as the first true machine, the mechanical clock fostered one of the original disassociations - the disassociation of time from the rhythms of nature. Although the Church teachings were based on the subjective belief in a utopian afterlife, the extreme denial of organic and natural earthly pleasures advocated by the early church caused an objective view of the organic to develop. By the 16th century the new protestant religion and the growth of objectivism coincided with what Mumford labeled the "disassociation of the animate and the mechanical" (p.31). This disassociation opened the floodgates for the objective sciences which were developing a common cultural understanding of the organic as merely a conglomeration of dead material to be studied and manipulated. The growth of objectivism coupled with the new protestant teachings, specifically the abandonment of the prohibition of usury, enabled the development of the early stages of capitalist economics by allowing God's work to be viewed as the accumulation of personal wealth. Not surprisingly, it was to the machine that these possessed western men turned to increase the production of wealth.
At this point in time, western civilization was in the first of three periods of technological development. Mumford labels these three stages based upon their method of energy production and organic material usage: the Eotechnic phase (based on water energy and wood), the Paleotechnic phase (based on coal energy and iron), and the Neotechnic phase (based on electricity and the alloys). Mumford explains that these stages overlap in many cases and should not be viewed as clean categories. Nevertheless, they do provide a useful framework for understanding the progression of the machine. The origins of capitalism occurred during the Eotechnic phase. Mumford finds the mine to be the central stimulant of Eotechnic technological progress. New mining technologies were created to extract increasing amounts of organic material to be converted into ever-increasing wealth for the emerging capitalist class. For Mumford, the Eotechnic phase cemented the alliance between capitalism and technology.
Soon, deforestation for fuel to be used in iron manufacture became a major cause for the progression into the Paleotechnic phase and the usage of coal as a primary energy source. Mumford labeled this Paleotechnic phase "The New Barbarism" (p.153). Although it decreased the levels of deforestation, the burning of coal ushered in profound environmental damage to the air and water. Through the use of coal and the development of steam power, production of iron and other goods increased exponentially at the expense of the emergent proletariat class. Mumford argued that this period gave birth to the "unsustainable society" (p.157) where military interests and warfare grew together with increased production and the need for continuous, escalating consumption, all of which were only possible due to the technological progress of the Paleotechnic period. As an example of this alliance, Mumford explains how the American Steel Manufacturing group deliberately destroyed the possibility of an arms reduction agreement, at the international arms conference of 1927, in order to maintain their profit share in the arms trade. (p.165).
The Neotechnic phase was ushered in with the spread of electricity as a power source at the beginning of the 19th century. The creation of electric power dramatically cleaned the air and water and the increased production enabled by the efficiency of electric power enabled another boom in the production of consumer items. However, the new phase also increased the power of those in control of technology, and Mumford shows how Neotechnic inventions such as the radio, photography, and the telephone were used by those in power to manipulate and manufacture consent in populations. Nevertheless, in the Neotechnic period, Mumford saw what he believed to be a possibility for the creation of a humane and compassionate society as well as a return to the organic.
Mumford saw the Paleotechnic phase as one that enabled and rewarded the anti-social characteristics of human nature, thus it inevitably created a society of inequality, increasing pollution, anomie, and warfare. Although Mumford was very aware of the destructive and anti-social record of technological progress, he refused to argue for the abandonment of the machine. Mumford stated that "lacking a cooperative social intelligence and good-will, our most refined technics promises no more for societies improvement..."(p.215). In this he is placing all the blame for the anti-social and ecologically genocidal effects of the machine on the economic organization of society. The problem with this analysis is that it is not teleologically secure. Written during the early years of the rise of Communism in the former Russian Kingdom, Mumford held out hope that, through Communism, the power of the machine could be harnessed to provide for the general welfare of society and that his hope in the future of technics would be born out. However, history has shown that technology in service of Communism, while it may help to normalize consumption, still produces many of the same destructive effects that it produced under capitalism - specifically militarism and environmental destruction. The hard reality is that Capitalism was not the cause of technological anti-socialism. Capitalism is a function of the same anti-social impulse that gave rise to technology - the will towards domination. Given the history of mechanical progress, it becomes essential to view technology as inherently anti-social. Rather than looking towards alternative methods of using machines of power to fix our world, as Mumford did, we should be thinking of and developing methods with which we can create a future world where machines and domination are not only unnecessairy but are also non-existant.
Wordy.......2005-06-01
This book is a historical interpretation of the effect of technology on society. Mumford traces the Industrial Revolution to its earliest roots, which he argues, go back to the invention of reliable timepieces in the Eleventh Century (whose invention was motivated, according to Mumford, by the need for recognizing prayer times in Catholic monasteries). Mumford also stresses the effects mining, the military, and the production of arms had on each other and on the development of technology, from earliest recorded history through modern times. Another recurrent theme is power, and how discoveries of new ways to harness power led to economic development. The final part of the book discusses the invention and assimilation of "the machine," as a generic concept for an advanced technology item. The book is illustrated with several sections of black-and-white photographs and reproductions of artwork. End material includes a chronology of inventions, a lengthy annotated bibliography, and an index.
In a discussion of the motivation behind invention, Mumford notes that "a good part of the mechanical elements in the day are attempts to counteract the effects of lengthening time and space distance. The refrigeration of eggs, for example, is an effort to space their distribution more uniformly than the hen herself is capable of doing...The accompanying pieces of mechanical apparatus do nothing to improve the product itself: refrigeration merely halts the process of decomposition." Is this progress? Although he originally wrote this book back in the 1930s, well before our present energy crises, Mumford was adamant that renewable energy sources must supply the power of the future. He is an advocate for wind and water energy, and he dreams of a day when the power of the sun can be used to generate electricity. Mumford is also disturbed by rampant consumerism. He quotes a Hoover Committee report on a survey of Recent Economics that states "The survey has proved conclusively, what has long been held theoretically to be true, that wants are almost insatiable; that one want makes way for another. The conclusion is that economically we have a boundless field before us; that there are new wants which will make way endlessly for newer wants, as fast as they are satisfied." Interesting points such as these, which sound remarkably fresh today, can be found scattered amongst the text. Unfortunately, however, such gems are overshadowed by the sheer volume of text. This book would benefit greatly from an abridgment that would bring out the best, most important ideas by eliminating the wordy asides and statements of personal opinion.
Worth the time spent reading!.......2003-09-04
Mumford has got to be one of the most over-looked (by main-stream) social critics of our time. He covers and unravels our confusing society so well, even though this book was written some time ago. Mumford's points ring quite true even in the 21st century.
Lengthy read but, for those who are serious about making sense of "why" things are they way they are here in the "civilized" world, Mumford is worth it.
Complete.......2002-05-14
From the beginning of time, technology has affected our lives. Learn how every invention (from the greatest milestone of them all: the clock) through history influences society and the way we live and think.
Excellent source for everyone wanting to reflect deeply on technology.
The First Critique of the Myth of Technology.......2000-11-24
Lewis Mumford is widely regarded as a critic of architecture, but his true importance in intellectual history is as a critic of technology and the myth of progress that accompanies technology, making it seem as if every technological advance is a step forward in civilization. That the events from 1945 onward dispute this claim would seem evident, but themselves are brushed over in favor of the prevailing paradigm.
Mumford was the first to take a critical look at technology and its accompanying mythos, and even though this book was later surpassed by his masterpiece, The Myth of the Machine, it is still worth reading for its approach to the tenor of its time (written during the Depression).
You can safely ignore the last chapters when Mumford attempts to offer an alternative to the technological society. Like most critics, he is mercifully short on alternatives. (Considering what alternatives were given humanity over the centuries, you can understand why I said that.) Until we truly understand technology and the role it has taken in our lives, we will be no closer to a solution than Mumford was in the Thirties.
For anyone who wishes to study the intellectual history of the West, this is an indispensible volume.
Book Description
Mumford explains the forces that have shaped technology since prehistoric times and shaped the modern world. He shows how tools developed because of significant parallel inventions in ritual, language, and social organization. “It is a stimulating volume, informed both with an enormous range of knowledge and empathetic spirit” (Eliot Fremont-Smith, New York Times). Index; photographs.
Customer Reviews:
vital books.......2004-04-21
Lewis Mumford was one of the 20th century's most important philosophers, and the two-volume set Myth of the Machine (Volume 1 is Technics and Human Development; and Volume 2 is The Pentagon of Power) are probably his most important books: the summation of his life's work. In writing as elegant as it is clear, Mumford makes plain the death urge that has always underlain civilization, which Mumford calls "the machine," and later "the megamachine." This is a social structure organized not around any organic human needs, but around the "needs" of the machines that have come to characterize and control our lives. These are crucial, incisive, devastating books. I cannot praise them highly enough.
The whole story!.......2000-09-22
rather than the typical modern myths about mankind and its evolution - evoked by TV-series like "The X-Files" - this great book - as an amazing anthology of the human intellect - shows the "whole truth" ( that is not outhere by the way, but in our brains ) and how much we are going to lose of our human capacilities if we adore the principle of the machine!
This book is an excellent history of language as a tool.......1997-03-18
This superb book discusses why language was mans most valuable tool ever developed and critiques opinions that say other wise. Enjoy, Mumford was a true geniu
Book Description
"In the following pages I lay before the reader a few thoughts that are taken from a larger work on which I have been engaged for years. It had been my intention to use the same method which in The Decline of the West I had limited to the group of the higher Cultures, for the investigation of their historical pre-requisite - namely, the history of Man from his origins. But experience with the earlier work showed that the majority of readers are not in a postion to maintain a general view over the mass of ideas as a whole, and so lose themselves in the detail of this or that domain which is familiar to them, seeing the rest either obliquely or not at all. In consequence they obtain an incorrect picture, both of what I have written and of the subject-matter about which I wrote.
Now, as then, it is my conviction that the destiny of Man can only be understood by dealing with all the provinces of his activity simultaneously and comparatively, and avoiding the mistake of trying to elucidate some problem, say, of his politics or his religion or his art, solely in terms of particular sides of his being, in the belief that, this done, there is no more to be said. Nevertheless, in this book I venture to put forward some of the questions. They are a few among many. But they are interconnected, and for that reason may serve, for the time being, to help the reader to a provisional glimpse into the great secret of Man's destiny."
--- Oswald Spengler
Customer Reviews:
Rage Against the Machine?!.......2003-08-06
The edition of _Man and Technics: A Contribution to a Philosophy of Life_ by Oswald Spengler that I read does not appear to be advertised on this website. It is a small paperback printed in Britain by the European Books Society and features a pen-outline of a burly bald man wearing a suit and holding a cigar (presumably Spengler himself). I found _Man and Technics_ to be a wierd philosophic exposition of the origins of humanity and the organic process of birth, flowering, decay and death that human Cultures inevitably face. The greatest Culture of all is the Western or "Faustian" Culture which far outranks the Classical (Greco-Roman), Arabic, Chinese, Indian, Mexican Cultures. It is something of a manifesto of extreme pessimism regarding the fate of the West and of its people in Europe and America. The Faustian Culture, of which America is a younger shoot, based in Western Europe, began to form around 1000 AD and it is marked by spiritual uncertainty, but an innate ability in Spengler's theme of "Technics." Technics involves the use of the reasoning faculties of the Mind in accordance with the physical use and manipulations of objects by the Hand to make whatever that is outside of man's being in Nature subject to man's will. This provides obvious advantages and also extremely serious disadvantages as well. The more a group of human beings became more machine, material and industry orientated, the more they tried to control Nature--the more Nature will eventually bring about the destruction of the human Culture that builds itself up over time and becomes overgrown, the same as individual plants, animals and plants die--as living organisms. Spengler, in the last page of _Man and Technics_ concludes that there is nothing that can be done to abort the fall of Faustian Civilization, which is ruined by internal decadence, economic competition from without, and the militancy of non-Western peoples who will use Western technology against Europe and America. Spengler regards any notion of optimism about the outcome of human affairs to be cowardly and any hope of utopian salvation to be a flighty dream. The best thing that any man can do in the face of eventual destruction is an honorable end following the choice of Achilles: "Better a short life full of deeds and glory than a long life without content." Spengler, a German philosopher influenced by the works of Nietzsche and contemorary with the National Socialist movement in Germany was a "conservative revoloutionary" opposed to the modern life of artificial material comfort and lack of individuality and spirit. Spengler may be viewed as being "racist," but his outlook on environmental damage was ahead of his time. This book does not, nor is likely to, have a wide audience, but it gives a different view of history in which Cultures and Civilizations are viewed as living organisms which live and die rather than in the liberal/economic interpretations of human affairs currently ascendant in social-political theory. Some of the material is outdated (_Man and Technics_ was written in the 1930s) and innacurate, but remains insightful in an analysis of the fate of the West today.
A profound critique of modern technological civilization!.......1998-11-06
Spengler wrote "Man and Technics" as a short and accessible supplement to his 'magnum opus', "The Decline of the West". Despite being short this is in fact a truly GREAT book. Spengler examines man's way on earth from the perspective of a philosophical anthropology. In agreement with the other exponents of reactionary modernism in Weimar Germany, Spengler focuses on technology as the critical feature of the Faustian Western Civilization. Spengler uses the Goethian hero in order to disclose to the reader the likely outcome of man's blind worship of instrumental technological reason. At the same time he scorns the West for its imperialism and violation of the life-style of other cultures. Apart from the -mostly accurate - prognoses that it makes, "Man and Technics" reveals a detached view of humanity as if perceived from an Archimedean point of view. Spengler remains a great thinker, rather misunderstood, who ought to be rediscovered by modern intellectuals for his penetrating insight and his uncompromising honesty!
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The Future Of Technics And Civilization.
Lewis Mumford
Manufacturer: Freedom Press
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ASIN: 0900384328 |
Book Description
A brilliant survey of our response to changing technology, which sets out the prerequisites for a rational use of our discoveries and inventions as a means of human liberation rather than enslavement.
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Technics and Civilization
Lewis Mumford
Manufacturer: Harcourt, brace
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ASIN: B000N5UGW4 |
Book Description
Cats have long been a favorite subject of cartoonists. From Jim Davis's Garfield to Patrick McDonnell's Mooch, cartoon cats make us laugh. Now in the form of Solange the Siamese, Brooke McEldowney has successfully captured the endearing qualities that makea cat, well, a cat: the way they cannot resist dark fabric, their unflinching indifference to squalid humanity (unless, of course, said humanity comes bearing treats), and their advanced heat-seeking technology that leads them to the warmest laps and the coziest corners. Readers will grin with recognition at each of these humorously illustrated hallmarks. The result is a delightful field guide to a cat's moods, motivations, and behaviors. Ever since it appeared as a recurring theme in the comic strip 9 Chickweed Lane, Hallmarks Of Felinity has attracted a large and devoted readership of its own. Longtime fans and newcomers alike will enjoy this charming gift book.
Customer Reviews:
I love this book!!!.......2007-04-28
I love this book! Solange the cat is your quintessential Siamese not unlike my own brood. The artwork is great, the characters are adorable and the one liners are witty. The only problem is that this book is out of print for some reason and when you do come accross it for sale on the second hand market, the price is 10 times it's original book price of $8.95; quite unheard of for a mass market paper back from 2002! This is total proof that this is a fantastic book!
Book could be better but the cartoons are priceless.......2006-05-13
As the owner of six (6) Siamese cats, I can attest that every behavioral quirk exhibited by Solange has mainfested itself in the behavior of one or more of my cats, often by all six of them. McEldowney has an affinity for these gentle and playful creatures that exceeds any other cartoonist (or writer, for that matter) that I've ever encountered. I like the 9 CHICKWEED LANE strip (a quirky strip not carried by my hometown Orlando Sentinel) but the primary reason I read the strip is for the cartoons featuring Solange. I hope to see additional volumes featuring Solange
Cutest cat ever..........2006-03-18
I would like to argue with all the people who complained about no other characters being included in this book. Personally, I adore Solange. I think that cat is quite possibly the cutest cartoon character ever created. Having been around cats all my life, I can not only appreciate the humour, but recognise my own cats' behaviour in Solange. Hallmarks of Felinity is my favourite part of 9 Chickweed Lane; I really don't care much for the rest of strip. My only gripe is that it's such a little book, but I hold out hope that eventually McEldowney will succumb to the lure of royalties and print the others. Along with a 9 Chickweed Lane book for the rest of you.
Barbie-O-Rama.......2004-12-10
Too bad there are no books ever published on "9 Chickweed Lane" other that that little one about a vain Siamese kitty doing silly kitty tricks without even emitting a single balloon.
Just shove him aside with the foot and I will talk about the strip itself. It seems to be all about female vanity. All it features is flaunting how perfect and limber that blondie teen's body is as well as how young and sexy her mother still is. I think the girl is a slut-wannabe rubbing up against her nerd boyfriend and trying to make his hormones shoot off like fireworks. At least the grouchy old granny is there to break up the dreamy, wide-eyed fantasy world of prancing and galloping bimbos and their equally limber kitties.
Rather a disappointment........2004-11-27
"Chickweed Lane" is a great comic strip. I love it, & I love his "Pibgorn" comic even more.
Unfortunately, the "cat" filler strips are the least amusing part of the strip.
So, why did they make a book filled entirely with them?
I'm disappointed. :(
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Bluff Your Way in New York
Ken Lawless
Manufacturer: Centennial Pr
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ASIN: 1571430288 |
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