This eye-opening book describes how modern technologies--such as computers, automobiles, machine tools, hybrid crops, nuclear reactors, and others--contribute to vexing social problems ranging from the continued subordination of women and workers to widespread political disengagement. Engineers, manufacturers, and policy makers rarely take these consequences into account. Contending that reinvigorated democratic politics can and should supersede conventional economic reasoning as a basis for decisions about technology, Richard Sclove clearly outlines how the general public can become actively involved in all phases of technology decision making, from assessment and policy making to research and development. Winner-- American Political Science Association's Don K. Price Award "Remarkably ambitious, superbly accessible, and urgently needed—a gold mine of fundamental insights and suggestive provocation . . . This is the most far-reaching work I have seen on the political nature of technological change." —David F. Noble, author of Forces of Production "Mr. Sclove is refreshing in the way he rejects ideas so nearly universally held that most people have never thought to question them." — New York Times , Sunday Book Review "A welcome addition to an essential debate . . . This book provides a provocative and thorough analysis of the challenges facing us on the threshold of the twenty-first century." —US Congressman George E. Brown, Jr., chairman, House Science Committee "Tightly reasoned and far-ranging in examples and erudition . . . cogent and illuminating . . . seminal . . . Sclove writes in the hallowed and constructive tradition of Paul Goodman, Ivan Illich, Paulo Freire, Lewis Mumford, and E. F. Schumacher." — Annals of the American Academy of Political & Social Science "This book will be an essential tool to strengthen democratic public problem solving. Sclove gives us a compelling moral argument and practical guide to shaping our future. Bravo!" —Frances Moore Lappé, author of Diet for a Small Planet and Democracy's Edge "Three recent books renew my hopes for a robust dialog about technology and its impacts. . . . Democracy and Technology is the most ambitious in scope." — Wired "Sclove's treatment . . . is as creative and artful as the society that he would like to see, filled with empirical evidence to show, in detail, that the possibilities as well as the problems are real." — Ethics "This is an important book, one for which the community of science and technology studies scholars has been waiting. In clear prose, using numerous salient examples, Richard Sclove provides a philosophic and practical foundation for participatory technology. I am looking forward to using this book in several of my courses (undergraduate and adult education) because I think it teaches the vital lesson that all citizens are experts at understanding the impact of technological change and that all citizens can become experts at affecting technological development." --Ruth Schwartz Cowan, Ph.D., Past President of the Society for the History of Technology, author of More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave , Professor of History and Director of Women's Studies, State University of New York at Stonybrook "No more intimidation! We citizens don't have to stand aside and `leave it to the experts' when it comes to complex technological questions, argues Richard Sclove. His rich examples permit each of us to imagine a rewarding role in shaping the technologies that can serve our values. In the quiet citizen-led revolution of hope now transforming communities across America, this book will be an essential tool to strengthen democratic public problem-solving. Sclove gives us a compelling moral argument and a practical guide to shaping our future. Bravo!" --Frances Moore Lappe and Paul Martin DuBois, Ph.D., Co-Directors of the Center for Living Democracy and Coauthors of The Quickening of America: Rebuilding Our Nation, Remaking Our Lives " Democracy and Technology is remarkably ambitious, superbly accessible, and urgently needed--a gold mine of fundamental insights and suggestive provocations concerning the reckless global rush to technological deliverance. At a time when democracy has eroded not only in practice, but also in imagination, Richard Sclove compels us to envision a different world. This is the most far-reaching work I have seen on the political nature of technological change." --David F. Noble, author of Forces of Production: A Social History of Machine Tool Automation and America by Design: Science, Technology, and the Rise of Corporate Capitalism , York University, Toronto "Richard Sclove's arguments for making technology more responsive to democratically decided social concerns are at once hopeful and tough-minded. Those alarmed--as I am--by global capitalism's potential for ecological, social, and political damage will find here