PART 1: From the Old World to the New 1. Manufacturing America: 1607 to 1800 2. Young America and Individual Opportunity: 1800 to the 1830s PART 2: Uniformity, Diversity, and Systematizing America 3. American Nationalism: A People and Common Material Experience, Late 1830s to 1870s 4. Communications and Power to Communicate 5. Systematizing the Fabric of American Life: The 1870s to 1920s 6. Systematizing Workers and the Workplace PART 3: From Industrial America to Post-Industrial America 7. Technology as a Social Solution: The 1920s to the 1950s 8. Technology as a Social Solution: World War II and the Aftermath 9. Expressing the Self: Individualism in an Era of Plenty, 1950 to 1960s 10. Public and Private: Technology as a Social Question 11. Public and Private: Technology and Individual Autonomy 12. Technology and Globalization.

This text is distinctive for its breadth of coverage. It offers a near encyclopedic quality, tackling a huge and disparate range of technologies (from colonial beer making to the invention of nuclear power) with skill.

REVIEW OF PREVIOUS EDITIONS 'Marcus and Segal have produced the first comprehensive textbook on the history of American technology. The treatment, which covers the period from the early seventeenth century through the very recent past, may be characterized as one embedding technology within a matrix of social, political, economic, and cultural history. ... Reflecting the authors' mastery of recent scholarship, the book deserves a place in all academic and public libraries as well as consideration for college class use.' - Choice; recognized as a Choice Outstanding Academic Book.