HISTSCI 189 The World We Made: Technology and Society (Formerly Speech, Print, Television, Blog: The History of Communications Technologies)

For as long as people have lived on Earth, they have shaped their world and have, in turn, been shaped by it.  This lecture course surveys humans’ relationships with the built world, beginning with the origins of civilization and extending through the present day.  During the semester, we will track the development of transformative technologies—from fire-making to the Internet—throughout human history and across the globe, and place them in their social contexts.  In so doing, we will learn how humanity chooses which technologies to exploit, and how human society is transformed by those choices.