TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 535 Dr. Nye is professor of American studies, Odense University, Denmark. His most recent books are Electrifying America (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1990), which won the 1993 Dexter Prize, and American Technological Sublime (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1994). His next, Consuming Power, will be published by MIT Press in October 1997. Resistance to New Technology: NuclearPower, Information Technology, and Biotechnology. Edited by Martin Bauer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Pp. xiv+422; figures, tables, notes, bibliog raphy, index. $74.95 (hardcover). The multidisciplinary field of technology studies—including an thropology, history, psychology, and sociology—has not done as im pressive a job explaining technological resistance as it has the pro motion of technological change (through attention to such topics as invention, design, innovation, and diffusion). Popular culture and scholarship alike glitterwith the names (and symbolism) ofinventorentrepreneurs like Edison, Ford, Deming, and Gates whose personas evoke defining eras in the recent history of technology. Yet with the notable exceptions of Ludd(ism) and Marx(ism), our eponymous language of technological dissent is barren. Why should this be so? Does it reflect the real biases of history and society—the empirical infrequency of resistance to technology—or is it the result of an un derreporting bias in historical and social research on technology? Judging by the diverse contributions to Resistance to New Technology, the nod could go either way. This volume is the product of a conference held at the London Science Museum in 1993. Its nineteen chapters cover a wide swath of countries, periods, and technologies. Yet the bulk of them are written by Europeans about Europe, which is one ofthis collection’s salutary qualities. The main focus is modern Europe (post-World War II) and modern technologies (nuclear power, information tech nology, and biotechnology), but two chapters on premodern cases, one on Australia, and two on the United States expand the range. Within modern Europe, the Netherlands, Britain, and Switzerland receive one chapter each, while two are devoted to Germany. Other chapters adopt a comparative focus on Europe, North America, or Japan. In addition to his chapter on a critical assessment of the “cy berphobia” concept, Martin Bauer, the editor, provides an informa tive introductory chapter and a systems-theoretical concluding chap ter. Finally, Alain Touraine’s early chapter on “The Crisis of ‘Progress’ ” tries to contextualize the problem of technology resis tance as a subspecies of discontent with modernity. Those who would fault scholarly bias for the paucity of attention to technological resistance will find ample statistical support in this volume. For example, Adrian Randall, in a fine chapter on “Reinter 536 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE preting ‘Luddism,’ ” argues that while resistance to the British In dustrial Revolution “was not the norm, it was in many ways remark ably widespread” (p. 60). Kristine Bruland documents “prolonged processes of resistance to new technologies from the mid-seven teenth century” (p. 129) in the Scandinavian fishing and timber products industries. Marlis Buchmann notes that 126,686 Swiss citi zens endorsed a constitutional amendment to protect against abuses from biotechnology, which was eventually enacted by a large major ity (p. 209). Dieter Rucht catalogs a total of 728 antinuclear “protest events” in four European countries from 1975 to 1989 (p. 281), de spite the fact that, asJoachim Radkau notes, barely one-half of onepercent of German news articles on nuclear power between 1970 and 1974 “mentioned any criticism” (p. 339). The volume also suggests that the sources of resistance are as poly morphous as their frequency. Threats to group economic interests are certainly one key source, as shown clearly in Randall’s chapter on the Luddites and in Roderick Martin’s chapter on trade unions in the London newspaper business that fought management-initiated plans to introduce computerized photocomposition in the mid1970s . In other cases, action (or inaction) by the state stimulates resistance, as Antonio Botelho makes clear in his detailed compari son of French-Japanese responses to early semiconductor develop ment. Yet perhaps the most important point to remember about sources of resistance to technology is that they are hardly ever just (or even mainly) economic or political in nature. Rather, resistance reaches into and...