The Power of the Machine: Global Inequalities of Economy, Technology, and Environment (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780759100671)

Hornborg argues that we are caught in a collective illusion about the nature of modern technology that prevents us from imagining solutions to our economic and environmental crises other than technocratic fixes. He demonstrates how the power of the machine generates increasingly asymmetrical exchanges and distribution of resources and risks between distant populations and ecosystems, and thus an increasingly polarized world order. The author challenges us to reconceptualize the machine-'industrial technomass'-as a species of power and a problem of culture. He shows how economic anthropology has the tools to deconstruct the concepts of production, money capital, and market exchange, and to analyze capital accumulation as a problem at the very interface of the natural and social sciences. Hornborg's work is essential for researchers in anthropology, human ecology, economics, political economy, world-systems theory, environmental justice, and science and technology studies.

Author: Alf Hornborg
ISBN-10: 0759100675
ISBN-13: 9780759100671
Publisher: Altamira Press
Language: English
Published: 10/09/2001
Pages: 284
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.99lbs
Size: 8.94h x 6.04w x 0.69d

Review Citation(s):
Reference and Research Bk News 02/01/2002 pg. 74