The tone of Technology and the Future began to evolve toward more explicit attention to the social and ethical impacts of specific new technologies in the sixth edition.  Chapters on implications of new genetic technology and on computer and information technology impacts were added, and the title of the last section of the book was changed from "Using Technology" to "Using Technologies and Confronting Their Dilemmas."  Also new in this edition was an article on African-American perspectives on technology. The cover motif, based on a quilt entitled "City V" by Jo Olf, was suggested by my wife, Jill, who, in addition to being executive director of an association, is also a quilter.  The quilt was purchased by the science and art program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1994 and hangs in the first floor lobby of the AAAS building in Washington, where I work.

Preface

Topical Table of Contents

Part 1.  Thinking about Technology

Introduction

Does Improved Technology Mean Progress?
    Leo Marx

Disappearing Through the Skylight
   O. B. Hardison, Jr.

Can Technology Replace Social Engineering?
    Alvin M. Weinberg

The Control Revolution
    James R. Beniger

Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer
    Wendell Berry

The Role of Technology in Society
    Emmanuel G. Mesthene

Technology:  The Opiate of the Intellectuals
    John McDermott

Technology and the Tragic View
    Samuel C. Florman

Part 2.  Forecasting, Assessing and Controlling the Impacts of Technology

Introduction

The New World Order
    Lester R. Brown

Great Expectations:  Why Technology Predictions Go Awry
    Herb Brody

An Unforeseen Revolution:  Computers and Expectations, 1935-1985
    Paul Ceruzzi

Choosing Our Pleasures and Our Poisons:  Risk Assessment in the 1980s
    William W. Lowrance

Women and the Assessment of Technology
    Corlann Gee Bush

Controlling Technology
    Allan C. Mazur

Part 3.  Reshaping Technology

Introduction

Buddhist Economics
    E. F. Schumacher

Can Technology Be Humane?
    Paul Goodman

Blue Collar Women
    Mary Lindenstein Walshok

Science, Technology, and Black Community Development
    Robert C. Johnson

Artifact/Ideas and Political Culture
    Langdon Winner

Part 4.  Using Technologies and Confronting Their Dilemmas

Introduction

Special Care:  Medical Decisions at the Beginning of Life
    Fred M. Frohock

The Dark Side of the Genome
    Robert A. Weinberg

Less Work for Mother?
    Ruth Schwartz Cowan

In the Age of the Smart Machine
    Shoshana Zuboff

Virtual Reality and Teledildonics
    Howard Rheingold

Technology Policy:  What Should It Do?
    Stephen J. Kline and Don E. Kash

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