Table Of ContentMicrohistories of
Technology
Making the World
Mikael Hård
Palgrave Studies in the History
of Science and Technology
Series Editors
James Rodger Fleming
Colby College
Waterville, ME, USA
Roger D. Launius
Auburn, AL, USA
Designed to bridge the gap between the history of science and the history
of technology, this series publishes the best new work by promising and
accomplished authors in both areas. In particular, it offers historical per-
spectives on issues of current and ongoing concern, provides international
and global perspectives on scientific issues, and encourages productive
communication between historians and practicing scientists.
Mikael Hård
Microhistories
of Technology
Making the World
Mikael Hård
Institute of History
Technical University of Darmstadt
Darmstadt, Germany
ISSN 2730-972X ISSN 2730-9738 (electronic)
Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology
ISBN 978-3-031-22812-4 ISBN 978-3-031-22813-1 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22813-1
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2023. This book is an open access
publication.
Open Access This book is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution
4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits
use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as
you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the
Creative Commons licence and indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this book are included in the book’s Creative
Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not
included in the book’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by
statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly
from the copyright holder.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the
publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to
the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made.
The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and
institutional affiliations.
Cover illustration: bauhaus1000 / Getty Images
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
P
reface
As a young doctoral student in the 1980s, I was convinced that the history
of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries could best be understood via
concepts like industrialization, urbanization, and rationalization. The
research sources I used for my PhD dissertation included engineering for-
mulae and technical drawings. And there was no doubt in my mind that
Sigfried Giedion had summarized modern history in the three-word title
of his most famous book: Mechanization Takes Command. Only later did
it dawn on me that history is much more complex, and frequently contra-
dictory. In time, I understood that the past cannot be reduced to one-
dimensional processes such as mechanization.
When, two decades later, my focus shifted from Europe to other parts
of the word, I began working with another one-dimensional concept: glo-
balization. In standard historical narratives, globalization has been por-
trayed as an unstoppable force that flattens all obstacles in its path; modern
technology is usually seen as globalization’s constant companion. For
example, in the second half of the nineteenth century, steamships, tele-
graph lines, and Gatling guns are said to have paved the way for colonial-
ism, one of the defining phenomena of that time in history. Another
example: During the second half of the twentieth century, shipping con-
tainers and computer networks purportedly pushed the world further in
the direction of globalization.
Increasingly uneasy with such overarching, macrohistorical interpreta-
tions, I asked myself if a microhistorical approach might help us see the
world from a new angle. What if we were to tell stories from “below”
v
vi PREFACE
rather than from “above”—focusing on ordinary people and their experi-
ences rather than anonymous structures? After all, peoples in Asia, Africa,
and Latin America have created their own forms of material culture and
used imported technologies in different ways. An even more exciting pros-
pect: Could research on the Global South help to transcend received
notions of history? Could this investigation contribute to new paradigms
in the field of history of technology—beyond simplistic notions like tech-
nology “diffusion” and “transfer”? These are the questions which guided
me when conceptualizing this book.
To view Western technology as an invincible juggernaut is to leave no
room for local initiatives and culturally specific technologies. It is time to
question assumptions about ever-increasing global uniformity. After all,
the world displays wildly divergent technologies. Rather than seeking uni-
versal solutions—let alone pushing for them—we need to acknowledge
the varied technologies made by human beings across the world. As a
historian leading an international team of researchers in a project called
Global-HoT (A Global History of Technology, 1850–2000), my contri-
bution to this endeavor is to uncover and recount representative microhis-
tories—rather than to perform macroanalyses. In this book, we have
gathered stories of how people in various corners of the world challenged
the production techniques and products brought by globalization.
Exercising their autonomy and freedom, creative people from all walks of
life selectively modified, adopted, or rejected modern machines, tools, and
gadgets. The spread of so-called modern technologies did not erase arti-
sanal production methods and traditional tools. Often, the new and the
old coexisted. Cultural encounters between the Global North and the
Global South have given rise to countless innovative solutions, many of
which have gone unnarrated.
By emphasizing the richness of material cultures beyond Europe and
North America, the team and I illustrate that Western societies do not
have a monopoly on novelty. And by bringing to light the technologies of
skillful people around the globe, we show how inventive individuals and
groups have shaped their lives and their communities. Each chapter in this
volume demonstrates how tenacious people have used traditional, “home-
made,” and hybrid technologies, maintaining autonomy in a world of cor-
porate systems and global networks.
The global history of technology cannot be reduced to tracing the
transfer of technologies “from the West to the rest.” On the contrary, we
need to embrace the complex reality that local tools and methods have
survived despite the onslaught of globalizing forces. In many cases, to
PREFACE vii
meet their needs, indigenous populations creatively combined local tools
and methods with modern ones. By redefining “technological develop-
ment” to include the daily practice of people in various cultural settings, I
hope to more fully inform readers of the history of human ingenuity.
The title of this book, Microhistories of Technology, is deliberate in its
plurality and in its reference to being a collection of singular stories. These
microhistories were crafted with the aim of unraveling the peculiarities of
each regional technological landscape; at the center of each story are the
specific knowledge and skills inherent in each local material culture. For
example, inhabitants in Northern India employ various technologies,
which may be called indigenous or imported, Western or Eastern, modern
or traditional. Within this range of possibilities, the combination of solu-
tions each group uses is place- and time-specific; in every case, the user’s
world is singular.
I chose the subtitle of this book to suggest its connection with
Consumers, Tinkerers, Rebels: The People Who Shaped Europe, a book I
coauthored with Ruth Oldenziel and published in 2013—as part of the
Palgrave Macmillan book series Making Europe: Technology and
Transformations, 1850–2000. In contrast to that book and my earlier
works, this volume focuses on the interactions of individuals and groups
with technology in the Global South, as well as in Central and East Asia. I
highlight the practices, struggles, and aspirations of peoples in Africa, Asia,
and Latin America. I also apprise readers of the many myths and prejudices
typically associated with imperial powers, globalizing forces, and develop-
ment policies. In doing so, I hope to expand on the new body of literature
that examines technology’s complex and nuanced role in the modern
world. My goal—and indeed the goal of the Global-HoT team—is to
inspire readers to rethink the relationship between Western and non-
Western material culture.
It has been a pleasure to write this book, and it has been a privilege to
discuss its findings with colleagues from so many parts of the world. I have
enjoyed the opportunity to craft narratives that bring to the fore previ-
ously unknown artisans and marginalized individuals. Some of the actors
in this book are local technicians and craftspeople who learned to adapt
“foreign” technologies to their own—and their communities’—needs.
Others are villagers and “slum” dwellers who singlehandedly made prod-
ucts to sell locally. Still others are people who made their own products in
an effort to retain their freedom of choice in a world increasingly domi-
nated by commercial consumer goods. Although local and “micro,” these
people’s stories deserve to be told.
a
cknowledgments
This book is the outcome of a collective effort. That said, the cover of this
book cites my name as the sole author. Indeed, I wrote all the chapters,
and I take full responsibility for any and all mistakes in the text. However,
the material herewith is based on research that I and other scholars con-
ducted within the framework of the research project “A Global History of
Technology, 1850–2000” (Global-HoT). This five-year undertaking
began in 2017, and it has been generously funded by the European
Research Council as a part of the Research and Innovation Program
Horizon 2020 of the European Union (ERC Advanced Grant No. 742631).
This research grant has also paid for language editing and open-access
publishing. My writing has also benefited from intense interaction with
fellows of the PhD program “Urban Infrastructures in Transition: The
Case of African Cities,” which was financed by the Hans Böckler
Foundation from 2014 to 2019 (Promotionskolleg PK039). In addition, it
would not have been possible to carry out the foundational work for the
book if I and my colleagues had not received dedicated support from the
Technical University of Darmstadt (TU Darmstadt), a public institution
of the German State of Hesse. I acknowledge the central-administration
staff members of TU Darmstadt, the university library, and my long-time
secretary, Iris Ohlrogge. Simon Bihr helped me and the rest of the ERC
team to solve all kinds of IT-related problems.
Indeed, it would be presumptuous for anyone to claim to singlehand-
edly write a truly global history of technology; close collaboration with
researchers from various continents is a requirement. Members of the
ix
x ACkNOWLEDGMENTS
research clusters mentioned above contributed empirical material, their
language skills, and their competence in communicating cultural phenom-
ena. These collaborations have yielded scanned archival material from dis-
tant archives and extensive references to secondary literature. The material
in this book has also benefitted enormously from critical and creative semi-
nar discussions that took place under the auspices of the European
Research Council project and the Böckler program. This exchange and
these discussions have taught me to constantly question—and correct—
my own perspective, my worldview, and my implicit prejudices.
I have conducted primary research in archives and libraries in the
United kingdom, India, and East Africa; my colleagues have carried out
primary research in many European countries, South America, East and
West Africa, and various parts of Asia. Twelve of the eighteen members of
the research team grew up in countries outside Europe and are fluent
in local languages, which include kiswahili, Uzbek, korean, Bengali, and
Arabic. Most of the researchers have been PhD students or postdocs at
TU Darmstadt; others have been associated with Global-HoT on a con-
tractual basis or as assistant researchers.
In terms of the researchers who have contributed to this book, I thank
Alejandra Osorio Tarazona, who provided me with literature and sources
for the chapter on cooking in South America. Some of the cookbooks
quoted in that chapter come from her personal collection. In addition,
Alejandra explained the intricacies of various cooking techniques as well as
particular Peruvian and Argentine recipes and ingredients. Alejandra also
helped me to better understand the specifics of South American material
culture.
Youngju Lee has been another invaluable contributor to this book.
Without Youngju’s assistance, it would have been impossible for me to
recount the history of menstruation techniques in South korea. Youngju
was also kind enough to give me access to interviews she had conducted
with women in South korea. Our discussions broadened my knowledge of
East Asian history in general—and modern korean history in particular.
For the chapter on precolonial and colonial West Africa, I benefited
enormously from groundwork carried out by David Drengk. David’s
scanned primary sources, books, and articles enabled me to comprehend a
part of the world I have not experienced in person. Our conceptual discus-
sions were crucial to this book; it was David who convinced me to employ
the concept of the “technological landscape” in interpreting the West
African environment.
