James Watt en Jan Salie. Over de verhouding tussen politieke geschiedenis en techniekgeschiedenis

Abstract

James Watt and Jan Salie: On the relationship between political history and the history of technology In this article the political salience of technological development is discussed. The author distinguishes three issues: 1. Technology as a source of new challenges that have to be met by the administrative and political elites; 2. Technology as a set of new resources and modes of control; 3. Technology as a source of the production of novel cultural and political worldviews: 'imagined modernity'.The new series on the history of technology in the Netherlands in the nineteenth century is discussed in this context. It is shown that the first aspect, technology as a source of new challenges, predominates in the series. The second aspect receives some attention but is not treated systematically, while the third aspect is almost entirely neglected. Finally, some political and intellectual aspects of the issue of the 'technological underdevelopment' of nineteenth-century Holland are discussed, drawing on a comparison of Dutch and British developments.