DEMOS

Demos and Profile Books invite you to an evening discussion to mark the publication of The Shock of the Old, Wednesday 31 January 2007, 17:00 – 18:30, followed by drinks.

Speakers:

David Edgerton, Hans Rausing Professor of History of Science and Technology, Imperial College
Simon Jenkins, Journalist and author
Richard Halkett, Executive Director for Policy and Research, NESTA
James Wilsdon, Head of Science & Innovation, Demos (chair)

If we had believed the hype, technology – from the Pill to the Internet – would have liberated women, ended class divisions, created a global village and achieved world peace. But it hasn’t. Instead of a society of cutting edge technology we are living in a world of bicycles, wooden furniture, textiles and forty-year-old nuclear power stations.

Standard histories of technology give accounts of when things were invented. Edgerton concentrates on what people actually use. So instead of the usual timeline of inventions we are faced with a patchwork of global use: rickshaws and bicycles alongside hybrid cars and aeroplanes; stealth bombers in a struggle against suicide bombers. The world we live in today is as reliant on corrugated iron and furniture as it is on the Pill and the supercomputer.

The Shock of the Old is the first global account of the place of technology in twentieth century history. This thought-provoking book will radically revise our understanding of the relationship between technology and society.

Join us to hear David Edgerton outline the themes of his book, followed by a discussion with the journalist Simon Jenkins and Richard Halkett of NESTA.

David Edgerton is a historian of technology who has made it his mission to shake us out of conventional thinking about the state –of-the-art machinery which – we fondly imagine – runs our modern world.’ John Sutherland, The Guardian

RSVP by email to: shockoftheold@demos.co.uk.