Changing Large Technical Systems ed. by Jane Summerton

Abstract

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 649 and environmental concerns with significant progress in cogenera­ tion (combined production of heat and power) and the use ofwind energy in its electrical industry. The discussion of cogeneration by Mikael Hard and Sven-Olof Olsson stands out among the four articles dealing with the econom­ ics and politics of the deregulation process. The authors provide not only a lucid comparative history of Scandinavian and other Euro­ pean cogeneration experiments in the postwar era, but a convincing recommendation for an energy policy that rests somewhere between market deregulation and privatization, on one hand, and centralized state direction, on the other. Let us not, urge the authors, throw out the baby with the bath water as we worship at the shrine of the free market. Good policy can shape positive environmental and social objectives, a lesson that all industrialized nations, including the United States, should ponder. Gunnar Agfors’s concluding piece speculates on the prospects for a successful transnational Nordic grid for the distribution of natural gas. This volume suffers from the unevenness typically found in the published proceedings ofconferences. There is some repetitiveness, and the depth ofresearch underlying the separate contributionsvar­ ies. Despite its importance to the history of the region, there is a bit too much emphasis on hydroelectricity. Given the enormous impact of North Sea oil and gas over the last quarter-century, one would have expected more than one essay on this topic. Nevertheless, the book succeeds in accomplishing two worthwhile goals. It brings to a wider audience significant information about the energy history of the Nordic states, and it provides a case study for energy policy analysis that has wider implications for all industrialized nations as they enter the 21st century. An understanding of the history of tech­ nological systems is a good place to begin thinking about the policy choices we will face. August W. Giebelhaus Dr. Giebelhaus is professor of history in the School of History, Technology, and Society at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Changing Large Technical Systems. Edited byJane Summerton. Boul­ der, Colo.: Westview Press, 1994. Pp. 348; notes, bibliography, in­ dex. $49.85. Thomas P. Hughes’s “systems approach” to the history of technol­ ogy introduced the idea of technological momentum to the field. The term has caught on, capturing our sense that technical systems become conservative as they grow, resisting forces (both internal and external) which seek to alter their progress. ChangingLarge Technical Systems examines the idea of momentum through a number of his­ torical and contemporary cases. This volume of essays, drawn from 650 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE one in a series of five conferences held since 1988 on Large Techni­ cal Systems (LTS), is the third book published from the series; the others were edited by Renate Mayntz and Hughes (1988) and Todd R. La Porte (1991). The book’s subject—systems change—seems the antithesis of mo­ mentum. Yet these articles seek not to refute Hughes’s idea but to refine it, to understand how systems respond to a variety of forces that can overcome momentum. Furthermore, when systems un­ dergo transformation, “the inner workings and structure often be­ gin to show.” In her introduction, editor Jane Summerton lists a few circumstances that pressure technical systems to change: when “previously achieved closure is undone,” when systems come into contact with other systems by “territorial expansion and intercon­ nection of similar systems across political borders,” when parts of existing systems combine to form new ones, and when monopoly systems reorganize or break up to face competition (p. 5). The essays describe these situations and emphasize the role of users and politi­ cal conditions, as well as the implications for public policy. The book leaves the reader with an impression of the value, as well as the limi­ tations, of the systems approach to the history and social study of technology. Several articles bring fresh material to the systems discussion. Ingo Braun and BernwardJoerges, for example, discuss the international organ transplant system as a “second-order” LTS, that is, one made up of parts of other systems. In this particular case, an artifact—a human organ—is removed from the “system” of a...