332 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE other and at themselves” (p. 297). Some historians of science and technology might express concern with this tidy origin story. Thomas Kuhn, for instance, used the ambiguity of Roentgen’s “dis covery”—8 November 1895? 22 December 1895? 5 January 1896?— to illustrate the difficulty of singling out revolutionary individuals or moments. One might also raise further questions regarding issues of socialjustice in the development and distribution of new imaging technologies: a rare discussion of unequal access to technology, for example, lists “patients on the [relatively exclusive] island of Mar tha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts” as one of the long “underserved populations” now successfully reached with teleradiology (p. 299). All in all, however, Naked to the Bone is an impressive book. While the history of physicians’ increasing commitment to visualization has been addressed many times, rarely have so many of the diverse strands of this complex story been brought together. Naked to the Bone not only offers a fine review of recent scholarly research on medical technologies; it presents this rich material in a lively fashion that will certainly draw broader audiences to the history of critical twentieth-century technologies. Rebecca Herzig Ms. Herzig is a doctoral candidate in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research has focused on the history of radiation therapeutics. Evolutionary Innovations: The Business ofBiotechnology. By Maureen D. McKelvey. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. Pp. xiv+319; figures, notes, bibliography, index. $70.00 (cloth). Maureen McKelvey has given us a double-barreled book. One bar rel provides a meticulous explanation of evolutionary economics, a school ofanalysis that many historians may recognize by name alone. The other barrel offers a more familiar subject—the development since the 1970s of the biotech industry—but one handled in a novel, comparative manner. Those scholars who have been meaning to find out about evolu tionary economics but have not had the time will find McKelvey’s book an excellent introduction to a brand of analysis that has pushed beyond the ahistorical paradigm of neoclassical economics. Like the biology that gives it much of its theoretical content, the new economics of Richard R. Nelson and Sidney G. Winter stresses selection from among diverse forms of economic institutions and ideas. Instead of friction-free change in a world of perfect informa tion, evolutionary economics describes a complex world in which “changes are the result of interactions among individuals, popula tions, and environments over time” (p. 16). McKelvey’s variation on TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 333 the Nelson-Winter model stresses the institution ofthe firm and how its competence and perceptions—shaped by its community of prac titioners into particular capabilities—facilitated adaptations to envi ronmental change. Her variant thus has a somewhat more positive tone than the original model. The changes most important to McKelvey are technological inno vations, in this case the recombinant DNA technology (rDNA) that emerged from molecular genetics in the United States during the 1970s. The author uses a comparative case study to create a meticu lous narrative history of the introduction of genetic engineering as a tool in drug discovery. In particular, she describes Genentech’s production of human growth hormone (hGH) and insulin, two pro teins that had heretofore come from natural sources. Kabi, a Swedish government-owned pharmaceutical company, contracted with Genentech to use the new technology to make hGH, and Eli Lilly and Company, the world’s leading producer ofinsulin, completed a simi lar agreement to use rDNA technology to express insulin in bacteria. McKelvey carefully describes the early political controversies over ge netic engineering, the technical problems that had to be solved in the central and ancillary technologies, the ultimate success of both the Swedish and the U.S. firms, and the subsequent competition as other organizations sought to capitalize on the success ofrDNA tech nology. Some readers of this analytical narrative will probably conclude that McKelvey falls short of achieving her ambitious goals. Her ac count, which is based on her dissertation at Linkoping University in Sweden, understandably draws upon a rich information base from Kabi, but much less detailed sources for Genentech and Lilly. More important...
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