Instruments and the Imagination ed. by Thomas L. Hankins and Robert J. Silverman

Abstract

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 233 tween structure and agency, have led to the development oftheories like ANT. She offers a variation on poststructuralist analysis as a solu­ tion to some of these dilemmas. The theoretical circle is closed by Grint and Steve Woolgar, who critique “failures of nerve” in con­ structivist and feminist analyses of technology (p. 48). The volume also includes six case studies. Telephones, household appliances, reproductive technologies, software, and computers are the technologies analyzed. The methods and sources used vary widely. For instance: Valerie Frissen’s essay on the gendering of tele­ phone use borrows from a wide variety of contemporary and histori­ cal secondary sources. Danielle Chabaud-Rychter followed a group of appliance designers through the design process of coffeemakers and food processors. The result is a suggestive analysis of the gen­ dered nature of the producer-consumer dichotomy. Vicky Singleton offers a highly theorized use ofANT in analyzing cervical screening programs. These case studies are most convincing when they employ field research rather than examples gleaned from secondary sources. Most ofthe technologies in question have already been wellstudied and are gendered in conspicuous ways. Hopefully, as this debate continues, researchers will take on other, less obvious, cases. In the introduction to The Social Construction of Technological Sys­ tems, Bijker, Pinch, and Hughes wrote that it began as a conversation between historians and sociologists over glasses of pink champagne. Both the virtues and the shortcomings of Grint and Gill’s volume suggest that perhaps another conversation is in order, between histo­ rians and sociologists interested in gender. This time, the cham­ pagne need not be pink. Arwen Palmer Mohun Dr. Mohun is an assistant professor of history at the University of Delaware. She is currently completing a comparative history ofgender and technology in the steam laundry industry. Instruments and the Imagination. Edited by Thomas L. Hankins and Robert J. Silverman. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995. Pp. xiv+337; illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $39.50 (cloth). An interestin scientific instruments has become an importantpart of new directions in the history of science. This interest is not nar­ rowly focused upon the artifacts themselves. Instead, key instru­ ments, placed in a societal and intellectual framework, are used to clarify the social, and especially the philosophical, foundations of modern science. Hankins and Silverman’s book extends this new approach to include the marginal instruments that hover some­ where between science and the magical and the occult. A new kind of instrument emerged in the Scientific Revolution 234 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE of the 17th century. Telescopes, microscopes, and air pumps were unlike traditional instruments because they distorted nature. The distortion was accomplished through magnification, in the case of optical instruments, or by creating an unnatural void in the evacu­ ated chambers of an air pump. These new instruments, termed phil­ osophical, quickly earned a place in early modern science. The origins of philosophical instruments are more complex and problematic than we have been led to suppose. Our familiarity with telescopes and microscopes masks the fact that many philosophical instruments began as devices of natural magic used to produce won­ drous, awe-inspiring effects. Hankins and Silverman investigate the place ofinstruments in natural magic and early modern science and reveal the philosophical presuppositions that governed their diverse uses. Convincing proof of the authors’ ability to make the most bizarre instrument yield a valuable philosophical and historical lesson is found in their chapter recounting the famous sunflower clock de­ vised by the 17th-century polymath, Athanasius Kircher. According to Kircher, a sunflower blossom placed on a freely moving platform will rotate following the motion of the sun. This botanical timepiece was said to operate indoors from sunrise to sunset on bright or cloudy days. The driving force, Kircher claimed, was the magnetic influence the sun exerted on the sunflower. Notable scientific fig­ ures, including Galileo and Descartes, joined the discussion about the clock’s operation. It would be wrong to declare Kircher a fraud when we learn that his sunflower acted like a clock because hidden magnets, driven by a clockwork mechanism, caused the blossom to rotate in a regular fashion, argue Hankins and Silverman. Kircher did...