Under Technology's Thumb - Softcover

"In these essays ... [Leiss] has made a notable contribution to our collective understanding of the distinction between technique and technologies and the relation of technology to society." Stanley Aronowitz, Department of Sociology, City University of New York.

From the introduction: "Standing at the threshold of modern times, Francis Bacon saw in experimental science and technological innovation the keys to humanity's future. Human history to that point, he thought, was an endlessly repeated cycle of despair and false hopes. The false hopes were fed by the old illusion that a few cheap tricks and the right magical formulas would unlock nature's treasury where unlimited wealth and power lay. The despair arose from humanity's seeming inability to escape from subjection to the natural forces that periodically visited famine, disease, pestilence, and destruction upon it."