Art and Technics

Featuring a new introduction by Casey Nelson Blake, this classic text provides the essence of Mumford's views on the distinct yet interpenetrating roles of technology and the arts in modern culture. Mumford contends that modern man's overemphasis on technics has contributed to the depersonalization and emptiness of much of twentieth-century life. He issues a call for a renewed respect for artistic impulses and achievements. His repeated insistence that technological development take the Human as its measure — as well as his impassioned plea for humanity to make the most of its "splendid potentialities and promise" and reverse its progress toward anomie and destruction — is ever more relevant as the new century dawns.

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Lewis Mumford was the author of some 30 influential books, many of which expounded his views on the perils of urban sprawl and a society obsessed with "technics." In this classic text first published in 1952, Mumford contends that an overemphasis on technics has contributed to the depersonalization and emptiness of 20th-century life. He issues a call for a renewed respect for artistic impulses and achievements. This edition contains a new introduction by Casey Nelson Blake, professor of history at Columbia University. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Lewis Mumford (1895-1979) was the author of numerous important books on American culture, technology, architecture, and urban life, including Technics and Civilization (1934); The Culture of Cities (1938); The City in History (1961); Myth of the Machine I: Technics and Human Development (1967); and Myth of the Machine II: Pentagon of Power (1970).

Casey Nelson Blake is professor of history and American studies at Columbia University and the author of Beloved Community: The Cultural Criticism of Randolph Bourne, Van Wyck Brooks, Waldo Frank, and Lewis Mumford.