EAN: 9783031228155

PALGRAVE STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE AND ...

In this open access book  Mikael Hård tells a story of how people around the world challenged
the production techniques and products brought by globalization. Retaining their autonomy and
freedom  creative individuals selectively adopted or rejected modern gadgets  tools  and
machines. In standard historical narratives  globalization is portrayed as an unstoppable force
that flattens all obstacles in its path. Modern technology is also seen as inexorable: in the
nineteenth century  steamships  telegraph lines  and Gatling guns are said to have paved the
way for colonialism and other forms of dominating people and societies. Later  shipping
containers and computer networks purportedly pulled the planet deeper into a maelstrom of
capitalism. Hård discusses instances that push back against these narratives. For example  in
Soviet times  inhabitants of Samarkand  Uzbekistan  preferred to remain in-and expand-their own
mud-brick houses rather than move into prefabricated  concrete residential buildings. Similarly
nineteenth-century Sumatran carpenters ignored the saws brought to them by missionaries-and
chose to chop down trees with their arch-bladed adzes. And people in colonial India
successfully competed with capitalist-run Caribbean sugar plantations  continuing to produce
their own muscovado and sell it to local consumers. This book invites readers to view the
history of technology and material culture through the lens of diversity. Based on research
funded by the European Research Council and conducted in the Global South  Microhistories of
Technology: Making the World shows that the spread of modern technologies did not erase
artisanal production methods and traditional tools.

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