688 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE a similar masterful study on the empirical construction of the elec tromagnetic spectrum, from spectroscopy to spectrology. Only then might we be able to teach with confidence how “particles and fields” became so central to current assumptions in macrophysics as well as microphysics. Loyd S. Swenson, Jr. Dr. Swenson teaches in the Department of History at the University of Houston. The History of Techniques. Vol. 1: Techniques and Civilizations·, vol. 2: Tech niques and .Sciences. Edited by Bertrand Gille. New York: Gordon & Breach, 1986. Pp. xv+1,410; illustrations, figures, tables, bibliog raphy, indexes. $295.00 the set. In the introduction to this encompassing two-volume history of technology, the late Bertrand Gille explained that he had to write most of the articles in what was to have been a collective work. He thought that general historians felt ill at ease with the history of technology and that technically informed persons rarely comprehended the his torical method. As a result, Gille wrote the first volume, a sweeping narrative history extending from the earliest records of man well into the 20th century. For the second, he wrote the essays on technology from the legal, sociological, and political perspectives because other likely contributors “made themselves scarce.” He was, however, able to locate an economist (Jean Parent), a geographer (André Fel), a lexicographer (Bernard Quemada), and a scientist (François Russo) to write the remaining essays on technology in relationship to their fields of specialization. (The article by Bernard Quemada on the French language was not included in the English translation.) Throughout the narrative volume, Gille applies a concept of evolv ing systems. Earlier general histories of technology, he points out, have placed different technologies in tight little boxes and also avoided creating a seamless historical web in which Trafalgar and the Pont des Arts could appear in the same paragraph. His method is to define the technical systems that prevailed in different times and places; to ex plain how one succeeded another; and to show how these systems interacted with economic, social, and political systems. Among the other concepts he uses in this Herculean task are structures, technical ensembles, limits of growth, and mutations. To illustrate and sustain this conceptual paraphernalia, he provides detailed case histories from various periods of history. Throughout the volume Gille also imag inatively diagrams his concepts. In addition, he supplies detailed sum maries of chapters and an extensive chronological table of events in history, especially the history of technology. Gille’s concept of technical revolution is thought provoking. He sees the history of technology and society as a sequence of prevailing tech TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 689 nical systems giving way one to another through a number of technical revolutions. Of the challenge that he accepted in writing the book, Gille notes: “the most important objective from our point of view was to understand, if not explain completely, the transition from one tech nical system to another, because it is there that the problem of technical progress truly lies” (vol. 1, p. ix). He develops in detail his explanation for this transition in his treatment of the First Industrial Revolution of the late 18th century and the Second Industrial Revolution of the late 19th century. It appears to me that he considers these two in dustrial revolutions as technical revolutions. Gille identifies the onset of an industrial, or technical, revolution as occurring when several of the technical subsystems in the prevailing system of production reach their limits of growth—waterpower as a subsystem, for instance. Hav ing reached its limit, the subsystem then destroys the harmonious relationships among the various subsystems and a period of change begins. When a mutation occurs and a substitute is invented for the limiting subsystem, a new overarching system of production must be organized to create a harmonious set of relationships in a new and more productive system of production. Gille sees demographic and market growth pushing the changes and the revolutions. He finds the social, political, and other nontechnical layers of history interacting in a systematic way with the technical. In this short review, justice cannot be done to the complexity of his concepts...