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      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        July 2020

        Building the French empire, 1600–1800

        Colonialism and material culture

        by Benjamin Steiner, Alan Lester

        This study explores the shared history of the French Empire from a perspective of material culture in order to re-evaluate the participation of colonial, creole and indigenous agency in the construction of imperial spaces. The decentered approach to a global history of the French colonial realm allows a new understanding of power relations in different locales. Traditional binary models that assume the centralisation of imperial power and control in an imperial center often overlook the variegated nature of agency in the empire. In a selection of case studies in the Caribbean, Canada, Africa and India, several building projects show the mixed group of planners, experts and workers, the composite nature of building materials and elements of different "glocal" styles that give the empire its concrete manifestation and contributed to the emergence of emotions as a means of forming communities and identities.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        April 2023

        An archaeology of innovation

        Approaching social and technological change in human society

        by Catherine J. Frieman

        An archaeology of innovation is the first monograph-length investigation of innovation and the innovation process from an archaeological perspective. It interrogates the idea of innovation that permeates our popular media and our political and scientific discourse, setting this against the long-term perspective that only archaeology can offer. Case studies span the entire breadth of human history, from our earliest hominin ancestors to the contemporary world. The book argues that the present narrow focus on pushing the adoption of technical innovations ignores the complex interplay of social, technological and environmental systems that underlies truly innovative societies; the inherent connections between new technologies, technologists and social structure that give them meaning and make them valuable; and the significance and value of conservative social practices that lead to the frequent rejection of innovations.

      • Trusted Partner
        Business, Economics & Law
        July 2024

        The business of time

        A global history of the watch industry

        by Pierre-Yves Donzé

        The business of time presents a comprehensive history of the global watch industry from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. Watch production in the twenty-first century is concentrated in three countries: Switzerland, Japan and China. The industry is dominated by a dozen or so large companies, including the Swatch Group, Richemont, LVMH, Seiko and Fossil. But a hundred years ago the picture was dramatically different. Over the course of a century, Great Britain, France, the United States and Russia saw the manufacture of watches disappear from their territory. At the same time, Hong Kong went from being a subcontractor of watch components to an intermediary between Chinese factories and the world market. Revealing the conditions that drove the spread of watch production around the globe, The business of time explains how multinationals emerged to dominate the industry and highlights how Swiss companies were able to establish themselves as the undisputed leader in luxury watches.

      • Trusted Partner
        Medicine
        November 2024

        Technology, health and the patient consumer in the twentieth century

        by Rachel Elder, Thomas Schlich

        Technology and consumerism are two characteristic phenomena in the history medicine and healthcare, yet the connections between them are rarely explored by scholars. In this edited volume, the authors address this disconnect, noting the ways in which a variety of technologies have shaped patients' roles as consumers since the early twentieth century. Chapters examine key issues, such as the changing nature of patient information and choice, patients' assessment of risk and reward, and matters of patient role and of patient demand as they relate to new and changing technologies. They simultaneously investigate how differences in access to care and in outcomes across various patient groups have been influenced by the advent of new technologies and consumer-based approaches to health. The volume spans the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, spotlights an array of medical technologies and health products, and draws on examples from across the United States and United Kingdom.

      • Trusted Partner
        Business, Economics & Law
        February 2022

        Anti-computing

        Dissent and the machine

        by Caroline Bassett

        We live in a moment of high anxiety around digital transformation. Computers are blamed for generating toxic forms of culture and ways of life. Once part of future imaginaries that were optimistic or even utopian, today there is a sense that things have turned out very differently. Anti-computing is widespread. This book seeks to understand its cultural and material logics, its forms, and its operations. Anti-Computing critically investigates forgotten histories of dissent - moments when the imposition of computational technologies, logics, techniques, imaginaries, utopias have been questioned, disputed, or refused. It asks why dissent is forgotten and how - under what circumstances - it revives. Constituting an engagement with media archaeology/medium theory and working through a series of case studies, this book is compelling reading for scholars in digital media, literary, cultural history, digital humanities and associated fields at all levels.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        February 2021

        An archaeology of innovation

        Approaching social and technological change in human society

        by Catherine J. Frieman, Joshua Pollard

        An archaeology of innovation is the first monograph-length investigation of innovation and the innovation process from an archaeological perspective. It interrogates the idea of innovation that permeates our popular media and our political and scientific discourse, setting this against the long-term perspective that only archaeology can offer. Case studies span the entire breadth of human history, from our earliest hominin ancestors to the contemporary world. The book argues that the present narrow focus on pushing the adoption of technical innovations ignores the complex interplay of social, technological and environmental systems that underlies truly innovative societies; the inherent connections between new technologies, technologists and social structure that give them meaning and make them valuable; and the significance and value of conservative social practices that lead to the frequent rejection of innovations.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        February 2021

        An archaeology of innovation

        Approaching social and technological change in human society

        by Catherine J. Frieman, Joshua Pollard

        An archaeology of innovation is the first monograph-length investigation of innovation and the innovation process from an archaeological perspective. It interrogates the idea of innovation that permeates our popular media and our political and scientific discourse, setting this against the long-term perspective that only archaeology can offer. Case studies span the entire breadth of human history, from our earliest hominin ancestors to the contemporary world. The book argues that the present narrow focus on pushing the adoption of technical innovations ignores the complex interplay of social, technological and environmental systems that underlies truly innovative societies; the inherent connections between new technologies, technologists and social structure that give them meaning and make them valuable; and the significance and value of conservative social practices that lead to the frequent rejection of innovations.

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        March 2021

        An archaeology of innovation

        Approaching social and technological change in human society

        by Catherine J. Frieman, Joshua Pollard

        An archaeology of innovation is the first monograph-length investigation of innovation and the innovation process from an archaeological perspective. It interrogates the idea of innovation that permeates our popular media and our political and scientific discourse, setting this against the long-term perspective that only archaeology can offer. Case studies span the entire breadth of human history, from our earliest hominin ancestors to the contemporary world. The book argues that the present narrow focus on pushing the adoption of technical innovations ignores the complex interplay of social, technological and environmental systems that underlies truly innovative societies; the inherent connections between new technologies, technologists and social structure that give them meaning and make them valuable; and the significance and value of conservative social practices that lead to the frequent rejection of innovations.

      • Trusted Partner
        Business, Economics & Law
        June 2022

        The business of time

        A global history of the watch industry

        by Pierre-Yves Donzé, Elizabeth Currie, James Ryan, Sally-Anne Huxtable

        World watch production today is concentrated in three countries: Switzerland, Japan and China. Former centres such as Great Britain, France, the United States and Russia saw the industrial manufacture of watches disappear from their territory during the twentieth century. How did this situation come about? The business of time aims to answer this question by presenting the first comprehensive history of the sector. It traces the evolution and transformation of the global watch industry from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day, highlighting the conditions that enabled watch production to expand across the globe and revealing how multinational companies gradually emerged to dominate the industry.

      • Trusted Partner
        Business, Economics & Law
        June 2022

        The business of time

        A global history of the watch industry

        by Pierre-Yves Donzé, Elizabeth Currie, James Ryan, Sally-Anne Huxtable

        World watch production today is concentrated in three countries: Switzerland, Japan and China. Former centres such as Great Britain, France, the United States and Russia saw the industrial manufacture of watches disappear from their territory during the twentieth century. How did this situation come about? The business of time aims to answer this question by presenting the first comprehensive history of the sector. It traces the evolution and transformation of the global watch industry from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day, highlighting the conditions that enabled watch production to expand across the globe and revealing how multinational companies gradually emerged to dominate the industry.

      • Trusted Partner
        Business, Economics & Law
        June 2022

        The business of time

        A global history of the watch industry

        by Pierre-Yves Donzé, Elizabeth Currie, James Ryan, Sally-Anne Huxtable

        World watch production today is concentrated in three countries: Switzerland, Japan and China. Former centres such as Great Britain, France, the United States and Russia saw the industrial manufacture of watches disappear from their territory during the twentieth century. How did this situation come about? The business of time aims to answer this question by presenting the first comprehensive history of the sector. It traces the evolution and transformation of the global watch industry from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day, highlighting the conditions that enabled watch production to expand across the globe and revealing how multinational companies gradually emerged to dominate the industry.

      • Trusted Partner
        Business, Economics & Law
        February 2022

        Anti-computing

        Dissent and the machine

        by Caroline Bassett

        Open access - no commercial reuse

      • Trusted Partner
        Business, Economics & Law
        February 2022

        Anti-computing

        Dissent and the machine

        by Caroline Bassett

        Open access - no commercial reuse

      • Trusted Partner
        Humanities & Social Sciences
        October 2022

        Building the French empire, 1600–1800

        Colonialism and material culture

        by Benjamin Steiner, Alan Lester

        This study explores the shared history of the French empire from the perspective of material culture in order to re-evaluate the participation of colonial, Creole, and indigenous agency in the construction of imperial spaces. The decentred approach to a global history of the French colonial realm allows a new understanding of power relations in different locales. Providing case studies from four parts of the French empire, the book draws on illustrative evidence from the French archives in Aix-en-Provence and Paris as well as local archives in each colonial location. The case studies, in the Caribbean, Canada, Africa, and India, each examine building projects to show the mixed group of planners, experts, and workers, the composite nature of building materials, and elements of different 'glocal' styles that give the empire its concrete manifestation.

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