How Should History of Technology Be Written? Challenges of a Global History of Technology Introduction

摘要

"[H]history of technology in the twenty-first century needs to be radically rethought." With this strong statement, Kati Lindstroem et al. conclude their essay on the question of how a future history of technology should be written. Three reviews of the Making Europe Series, published in issue 3/2020 of this journal, were the starting point for this question. This series underwent reviews from three different perspectives by three scholars from three different continents. What the reviewers had in common though was that they all raised questions regarding the spatial perspective of a historiography of technology as well as about the relations between different spaces. Guido Thiemeyer addressed the question of the relationship "between the notion of 'Europe' and the individual nations." In her review, Amy Bix noted that American historiography of technology is often criticized for focussing on the USA in the 20th century, a statement that could be made with the same validity for Germany and for many other European nations that also write national or European histories. However, adding on to the Making Europe Series, the task now at hand is, as Bix concluded, "to explore a full global history of technology." John Bosco Lourdusamy had argued similarly, criticizing that the series as a whole would have benefited from a "more integrated treatment of the non-European dimensions and implications on the various aspects discussed in the entire series," even though he conceded that the last volume, Europeans Globalizing, focused on a non-Western view of Europe and Europeans encountering other regions of the world.