Heat and Cold: Mastering the Great Indoors by Barry Donaldson, Bernard Nagengast

Abstract

1000 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE are those by W. Bernard Carlson and David Mowery. Carlson notes that in the United States business firms have historically played a key role in transforming technology from abstract design or model into social artifact. He tries to merge the insights of the social-con­ structivists’ approach to technology with economic theory, arguing that firms should not be treated as “single agents.” That is, decisions about technology within firms often reflect competing interests and ideas, and companies’ decisions about technology are the result of internal power struggles. To illustrate, he applies his interest group model to the Thompson-Houston, Edison, and Westinghouse elec­ tric companies. Building a successful technological system not only required the creation and coordination of organizational capabili­ ties; it also required the coordination (or subjugation) ofcompeting ideas and interests. David Mowrey’s essay provides both a masterful review of the his­ tory ofcorporate R & D and new insights into the broad sweep ofthis history from the establishment of the first corporate labs through the present. It explores the internal workings of research laboratories, both within firms and outside of them. And it places laboratories in the context of “national innovation systems,” to use Richard Nel­ son’s valuable phrase. Like several other contributors but more ex­ plicitly than any other, Mowrey argues that the markets-hierarchy distinction should not be drawn too sharply. Firms internalized much R&D, but before 1940 their labs were focused outward. They acted as listening posts and contact points between the firms and their competitors as well as with other parts ofthe innovation system. Mainly because of changes in public policy, those same labs became much more insular and inward focused after 1940, to the detriment of American inventiveness. It is a fitting essay to capture the import of the entire volume, for it looks from the inside out: from the busi­ ness firm that economists have taken for granted, to the larger con­ text of institutions, policies, industries, and markets that the Chandlerian brand of business history has slighted. Kenneth Lipartito Dr. Lipartito teaches in the Department of History at the University of Houston. Heat and Cold: Mastering the Great Indoors. By Barry Donaldson and Bernard Nagengast. Atlanta: American Society of Heating, Refrig­ erating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, 1994. Pp. xxvii+339; il­ lustrations, notes, index. $99.00 (hardcover). This is an illustrated history of heating and refrigeration, pre­ sented on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of the Ameri­ can Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engi- TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 1001 neers (ASHRAE). The society supports and organizes historical work—for instance, collecting interviews with important retired members of the society—and coauthor Bernard Nagengast was a spiritus rector of this work. The book starts in ancient times, then skips the Middle Ages to arrive fairly quickly in the 19th century (p. 30). More than two-thirds of the book is devoted to the period 1870-1930. There are good reasons for this: it was the most innovative period of refrigeration and covers the first steps of air-conditioning. Ice machines became reliable, artificial ice prevailed against natural ice, a little later the refrigerator against the icebox, and at the end of the period the control of humidity and temperature led to the rise of air-condition­ ing. Most present-dayleading companies in the field, the prime mov­ ers, and the engineering associations were founded in this period. The velocity of technological progress, as the authors note, seems to have slowed down since then (p. 309). It normally is superfluous to complain in a review about what has not been written about, but in this case the process by which the heating and cooling industry began to stagnate would have been most interesting for the historian of technology. The book is written by engineers for engineers, unlike the Fest­ schrift of the ASME Heat Transfer Division, edited by Edwin Layton and John Lienhard (1988), which had a true historical approach focusing on the science-technology relation. This book cannot de­ cide about its focus and tries everything at once. It presents many technological solutions, persons, company histories, and important building projects, but the many little...