Visions of Technology edited by Richard Rhodes, Simon & Schuster,
拢30, ISBN 0684839032 (March)
FEELING confident that you鈥檒l survive the 20th century鈥攂arring a
last-minute asteroid impact or some millenarian nut with a cobalt bomb? Don鈥檛
get complacent, because here comes Richard Rhodes to kill us all with gloom. The
chronicler of the atomic bomb, the hydrogen bomb and the BSE epidemic has put
together an anthology of writings on technology.
But you鈥檒l find charms as well as chills in this collection of a couple of
hundred items culled from speeches, technical journals, novels, reports and even
a C & W song. The earliest appeared in 1901, the most recent in 1997.
Technology defines our century. And much of technology is concerned with killing
human beings, poisoning our planet or dehumanising communities, all on
unprecedented scale.
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No surprise, then, that the anthology includes Rachel Carson on biocide,
Robert Oppenheimer on nuclear weapons and a particularly chilling passage from
Nineteen Eighty-four. On a slightly lighter note, Stanley Kubrick鈥檚
Dr Strangelove explains the logic of building a bomb that would wipe
out life on Earth. On the whole, Rhodes is kind to technology. Although he
explicitly avoids medicine, he finds space for an estimate that 137 million
Americans are alive today because of improvements in healthcare and hygiene.
Visions is an essential reference work for science writers. All the
canonical texts are here: Arthur C. Clarke鈥檚 Wireless World paper
inventing communications satellites, H. G. Wells鈥檚 1914 prediction of atomic
bombs (dropped by hand from open cockpits) and Karel Capek鈥檚 play Rossum鈥檚
Universal Robots. Moore鈥檚 law on microchip capacities, Murphy鈥檚 law on
glitches. Pravda hails Sputnik; C. P. Snow bemoans the two cultures.
Omissions? Sure: one hallmark of a good anthology is that it engages the
reader enough to suggest changes. I鈥檇 have included a flight of fancy from
Douglas Adams鈥攑erhaps the chaos that ensues when lifts can see dimly into
the future. Rock and roll, which features only as an anecdote about Neil Young,
deserves a little more space. And 30 years after the first Moon landing, it is
surprising how little Rhodes draws on the literature of spaceflight. We are
given John Glenn describing weightlessness and, in a paper on glitches, the
tragi-comic failure of an early Redstone launch. But Tom Wolfe鈥檚 The Right
Stuff describes that more memorably, and Apollo 11 inspired Norman Mailer鈥檚
Of a Fire on the Moon.
With some exceptions, such as Joan Didion鈥檚 appreciation of the Hoover Dam,
the collection reflects the fact that technology doesn鈥檛 evoke great writing.
Rhodes says that 鈥渁ppreciation of technology among intellectuals not
technologically trained was hard to find鈥�. Conversely, when the technologically
trained put pen to paper, the result is often blind optimism. This makes for
delicious period pieces, and not just from the gung-ho 1920s. A 1968 essay, 鈥淭he
Computer as a Communication Device鈥�, which essentially invented the Internet,
finishes with the prediction: 鈥淟ife will be happier for the on-line individual .
. . communication will be more effective and productive, and therefore more
enjoyable.鈥� More enjoyable? That should be up there with 鈥渆lectrical energy too
cheap to meter鈥濃�攚hich, of course, is also included. It was a 1954
prediction by the head of the US Atomic Energy Commission.
Rhodes keeps the surprises coming right to the end. The poetry of a rifle
drill instructor is coupled with Oppenheimer鈥檚 haunting 鈥渢he physicists have
known sin鈥�. And the very last extract, a piece of sociobiology from Edward O.
Wilson is followed by Arthur C. Clarke鈥檚 law: 鈥淔or every expert, there is an
equal and opposite expert.鈥� Typical Rhodes touches, turning what could have been
a scissors-and-paste hack job into concentrated essence of 20th century.