Book Reviews White Heat: People and Technology. By Carroll Pursell. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1994. Pp. 224; illustrations, notes, index. $18.00 (paper). If we have a clear view of values and power relationships in society, “we can deconstruct our .. . technologies to discover the often hidden ways in which their apparent neutrality masks codes of privilege and meaning.” With that comment (p. 29), Carroll Pursell proceeds to deconstruct industry, weapons, sanitation, scientific research, and in formation technology in a style well adapted for reading by a wide audience, making many serious and stimulating points on the way. The process of deconstruction exposes myths about the supposed “irresistible logic” (p. 39) of invention and about the tendency always to overestimate the revolutionary nature of technological change (p. 216). It shows how a “veil of ‘science’” could disguise the exercise of power by managers who adopted Taylorism and indicates that the “temptation to use technology in order to avoid facing questions of social justice was as old as the American republic” (p. 104). Social justice then crops up more specifically in the context of information technology, where the Office of Technology Assessment has warned how “the gap” between those who can access services and those who cannot is likely to increase (p. 203). Near the end of the book is some discussion of Western attitudes to Japan. Its implication is that, having habitually understood the history of technology in terms of Western achievement, rather than recognizing the dialogue with other cultures that actually occurred, we are now seriously ill-prepared for the technological successes of Japan and unwilling to learn the lessons that might be drawn. One lesson, for example, is that although information technology is likely to be associated with an increase in social inequalities in Western countries, this may not happen in Japan, which seems set to remain the most egalitarian of the industrialized countries. Privilege is en coded notjust in the technological hardware but also in the different institutions and the different versions of capitalism that are to be found in the West and in Japan. Deconstruction of the meaning of technology sometimes leads to surprising conclusions. Nineteenth-century sewers were the seat of dark threats, with their role in the spread of disease still not well Permission to reprint a review printed in this section may be obtained only from the reviewer. 680 TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 681 understood, and “Just as female nature was always a threat to male structure ... so the sewers needed to be brought under control” by the rational, masculine order of the engineer (pp. 186-87). The eight chapters of the book, it should be explained, were written as “a companion to” but “not a substitute for” an eight-part television series. The book can be read quite independently, however, and worked well for me without seeing its television counterpart. Pursell says that he has felt free in this context to present “a collage rather than a linear narrative” (p. 7), and like a television presenter, he sometimes glides swiftly from one topic to another, leaving a trail of non sequiturs. This does not lead to serious problems, except perhaps in a chapter on time, high-speed photography, DNA, digital imaging, and the symbolism of staircases. One error in this chapter is the state ment that “invention of the electric telegraph by Samuel F. B. Morse in the United States led to its use in 1837 on the London and North Western Railway” (p. 70). In fact, the railroad telegraph referred to had been devised by William F. Cooke and Charles Wheatstone with out knowledge of Morse’s invention. They used a different system, dependent on the movement of magnetic needles, to give a visual signal to the person receiving the message. This and Morse’s tele graph were simultaneous but independent inventions, a full discus sion of which would have to mention Joseph Henry also. This is a generously illustrated volume which was put together by BBC Books, but the British illustrations do not always match the American examples quoted in the text, and some are quite superflu ous. Even so, it is a very effective popularization...