Between a Flint Scraper and the Steel Mills of Sheffield; Between a Skin Coracle and the Queen Mary

摘要

The title reference to George Orwell's quip in The Road To Wigan Pier (1937, in Wall, 1994, p. 148) is an appropriate analogy for these two books. The original quote, a caricature of a promethean Socialist perspective, suggested that Socialists couldsee nothing between a paleolithic cave existence and the industrialization and mechanical progress of Sheffield and the Queen Mary. Update Orwell's quote, perhaps replacing Sheffield with The Third Italy', Silicon Valley or the Tokyo Stock Exchange, andreplacing the Queen Mary with the Eurostar or the Discovery space shuttle, and we have the focus of these two books.