A Guide to the Book
Here’s a little explanation of the structure of the book to talk you through how we are going to explore the idea of technology. There is quite a lot of overlap between different chapters, but we’ve tried to make sure that they are fairly conceptually distinct and that each of them flows into the next. We’ve also included a series of questions at the end of most of the chapters, intended to highlight some important considerations. First, in What is it? we give a very brief introduction of the term ‘technology’, how it is defined and used, and how we will use it in the book. Next, in A Brief History we try to get to the roots of where the modern idea of technology and its problems came from. We describe the thinking and view of the world it is based on and the implications this has had. Particularly we look at the Enlightenment and its perspective on nature. 15
