See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/6059072

Technological Change: The Evolution of Technology.

Article  in  Science · October 1989

DOI: 10.1126/science.245.4921.991 · Source: PubMed

CITATIONS READS

2 1,441

1 author:

Colleen A. Dunlavy
University of Wisconsin–Madison
12 PUBLICATIONS   152 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Politics and Industrialization View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Colleen A. Dunlavy on 08 January 2015.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Technological Change
The Evolution of Technology by George Basalla
Review by: Colleen A. Dunlavy
Science, New Series, Vol. 245, No. 4921 (Sep. 1, 1989), p. 991
Published by: American Association for the Advancement of Science
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1704203 .
Accessed: 23/03/2014 17:40

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

American Association for the Advancement of Science is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and
extend access to Science.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 128.104.46.196 on Sun, 23 Mar 2014 17:40:26 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 *~
Uxii
TechnologicalChange
The Evolution of Technology. GEORGEBA-
SALLA.CambridgeUniversityPress, New York,
1989. viii, 248 pp., illus. CambridgeHistory of
Science.
For the better part of a century, two
broadly divergent perspectives have oriented
scholarship on the nature of modern techno-
logical change. The "revolutionary" view
provided the initial point of departure, first
attaining academic stature in Arnold Toyn-
bee's lectures on the Industrial Revolution
(1884). Then in the 1920s an "evolution-
ary" perspective began to emerge as an
intellectual counterforce. Over the years, the
general contours of the controversy have
remained largely unchanged, although sus-
tained criticism of the revolutionist view-
point has recently tilted the balance of pow-
er perceptibly toward the evolutionary posi-
tion. Now, in a major contribution to the
discourse, George Basalla has done scholars
a valuable service, for his forthright defense
of the evolutionist position may, ironically,
convince them to discard the evolution-
revolution dichotomy and begin afresh.
Chief among the book's virtues is the clear
and direct-indeed, elegant-manner in
which Basalla's argument unfolds. He takes
as his starting point the vast "diversity" of
objects in the man-made world. How to
explain such diversity? Biological necessity
will not do, he argues cogently, not even to
explain the adoption of such a fundamental
invention as the wheel. Instead, he proposes
"a theory of technological evolution" that
emphasizes the social, political, and eco-
nomic context of technological change. The
bulk of the study explores the "evolutionary
analogy" in depth, ranging widely over cen-
turies and cultures and drawing examples
from the history of technology, economic
history, and anthropology.
Three principal concepts underlie Basal-
la's theory: continuity, novelty, and selec-
tion. Obviously, continuity among artifacts
must obtain, he notes, for the evolutionary
analogy to hold. And through a series of
case studies, he does indeed demonstrate
that all artifacts-real or imagined-have
had antecedents in the natural or made
world. Wrongheaded ideas of discontinuous
or revolutionary change, he maintains, have
derived their strength, on the one hand,
from Western ideas and institutions (espe-
I SEPTEMBER I989
This content downloaded from 128.104.46.196 on Sun, 23 Mar 2014 17:40:26 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
View publication stats
analogyto good effect,but how well has he
defendeda "theory"of technologicalevolu-
tion?His treatmentof noveltyand selection
lacksthe rigor that markshis treatmentof
continuity,yielding little more than a cata-
logue of relevantfactors.The study might
have been more convincing had he made
betteruse of the recentliterature,provideda
fullerbibliography(not to mention regular
cially nationalism and the patent system) footnotes), and treatedsome importantis-
and, on the other, from a tendency to sues (and authors)in a less cursoryfashion.
confuse technological changes with their Yet a deeperproblemwould haveremained.
"truly revolutionary" economic and social By equatingevolutionwith continuity,Ba-
consequences. When one focuses on the sallahas in effectmade a strawman of the
proper unit of analysis, the artifact,one finds revolutionaryperspective:since no artifacts
"technological continuity," even in those have emerged without any antecedents
momentous changes that ushered in the whatsoever,it follows that none qualifiesas
Industrial Revolution in Britain. revolutionary.To my knowledge,however,
Yet, in order for change to occur, "novel- no one has ever definedthe term "revolu-
ty," in Basalla'swords, "must find a way to tion" in such a way as to requirecomplete
assert itself in the midst of the continuous." discontinuity.And to make mattersworse,
And, as he amply demonstrates, technologi- Basallahimselfacknowledgesthat some arti-
cal novelty has had manifold sources, above facts-"seminalinventions,"he callsthem-
all in Western societies. Most are familiar have been more important than others.
ones: economic pressures, institutionaliza- With that admission,he seems unavoidably
tion of research, and changes in technologi- to haveresurrected somethinglikethe revo-
cal knowledge induced by diffusion or by lutionaryview, and this is when one begins
advances in scientific understanding. Oth- to suspectthat the evolution-revolution dis-
ers, such as "fantasyand play," have received courseought to be set asideonce andfor all.
scant attention. In all, Basalla's masterly Fortunately,Basalla'sown insights at an
survey covers such an arrayof sources that it intermediatelevel of analysismay well pro-
seems bound to escape the confines of a tidy vide the buildingblocksfor a more rigorous
theory, which, as he notes, "would have to and sophisticatedtheory of technological
encompass the irrationality of the playful change.
and fantastic, the rationality of the scientific, COLLEENA. DUNiAVY
the materialism of the economic, and the Departmentof History,
diversity of the social and cultural." Universityof Wisconsin,
Having established that novelty does in- Madison, WI 53706
deed find points of entry, Basalla comes at
last to the issue on which the viability of his
theory rests: the dynamics of selection. Coevolution: Cautious Views
What is it in the material world, where
human beings intervene, that serves as an
ChemicalMediationof Coevolution.KEVIN
analogue to survival value in the physical C. SPENCER, Ed. AcademicPress, San Diego,
world? As Basalla himself acknowledges, CA, 1988. xvi, 609 pp., illus. $95.
"survivalvalue becomes an amorphous con-
cept when applied to technology." So again For the past 25 years, herbivorous insects
he eschews a general theoretical account, and their host plants have been the preemi-
instead mining the evolutionary analogy for nent systems claimed to exemplify coevolu-
insight into the "diverse and conflicting tion. The term itself was popularized by
forces"-economic, military, social, and cul- Ehrlich and Raven in a classic paper, "But-
tural-that have shaped historical processes terflies and plants: a study in coevolution"
of selection. (Evolution18, 586-608 [1964]), in which
It is here, on a middle-level theoretical taxonomic patterns of host use by butterflies
ground, that Basalla is at his best, whether were used to develop the thesis that plant
the subject be novelty or selection. Sensible evolution-particularly the evolution of de-
yet insightful observations follow one upon fensive chemical compounds-has been
the other-about the relationship between stimulated by insect herbivores, which in
science and technology, about patent sys- turn adaptively radiated in response to the
tems, about alternative paths, and (in a pharmacopoeia. In Chemical Mediation of
concluding chapter) about the cultural Coevolution,some (only some) of the lead-
boundedness of notions of technological ing students of plant-insect interactions,
progress. joined by one student of herbivorous mam-
In short, Basalla uses the evolutionary mals and one of chemical mimicry, describe
BOOK REVIEWS 991