Books in Brief: The Republic of Technology

The Republic of Technology, by Daniel T. Boorstin (Harper, 105 pp., $8.95).

Here is a response of sorts to Jacques Ellul’s Technological Society and, on native ground, to Henry Adams’ reflections on the Virgin and the Dynamo in his Education. It is good reading: analytical, stimulating, and insightful—in short, the kind of book, someone noted, which Steve Allen will fill with “That’s right!” marginalia. Boorstin is superb in his taxonomic differentiation of politics and technology, but whether the upbeat ending—a bit of Enlightenment optimism—is warranted is quite another thing. Perhaps mastery of the machine and the “Drive-In Everything” remains America’s last frontier; however, one would do well to remember that B. F. Skinner’s opening chapter in Beyond Freedom and Dignity is entitled “A Technology of Behavior.”

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Gerald T. Dunne

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The Republic of Technology, by Daniel T. Boorstin (Harper, 105 pp., $8.95).

Here is a response of sorts to Jacques Ellul’s Technological Society and, on native ground, to Henry Adams’ reflections on the Virgin and the Dynamo in his Education. It is good reading: analytical, stimulating, and insightful—in short, the kind of book, someone noted, which Steve Allen will fill with “That’s right!” marginalia. Boorstin is superb in his taxonomic differentiation of politics and technology, but whether the upbeat ending—a bit of Enlightenment optimism—is warranted is quite another thing. Perhaps mastery of the machine and the “Drive-In Everything” remains America’s last frontier; however, one would do well to remember that B. F. Skinner’s opening chapter in Beyond Freedom and Dignity is entitled “A Technology of Behavior.”