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The microelectronics revolution
action. It is difficult to produce a simple model, if not impossible. Thring is also sloppy over dates, whether in a specific sense, e g regarding the year in which Darby. first used coke in a blast furnace, or in a general way, e g locating the manufacture of fertilisersand pesticides within the period of the Industrial Revolution (1760 to 1840 is a perferred period). Indeed he confuses the Industrial Revolution with industrialization in general. In his section on health he should have brought in Chadwick rather than quote Illich. But Chadwick was not an engineer, rather an administrator politician. His whole section on health in towns in the U K after the Industrial Revolution is a travesty. But this is a key step in his argument.
Spiritual run-down This exposure to criticism is a pity because the underlying purpose of the book is to consider 'humane technology' (using a phase borrowed from Small is beautiful as the rational alternative to both high technology and radical technology. In pursuing the bad effect of industrialization he quotes largely from the recent list of well known critics without a whisper of some of the mid-Victorian studies and their political derivatives and the practical responses made at the time by engineers, among others. This is the entry into the development of the theme of collapse of civilisation. This he develops through a brief summary of his views on the collapse of previous communities which comes to 'the run down or degeneration of the overall motivation, spirit, or ethos of the social system'. I would have been impressed if he had summarized Arnolt Toynbee on the subject, but this would have meant introducing other factors into the collapse, e g the rise of competing cultures. Remarkable enough his analogy between the likely downfall of our present community and the collapse of the Roman Empire is immediately followed by the set of models sponsored by the Club of Rome which indicate different reasons for likely calamity, in particular pollution and the exhaustion of resources. The fate indicated by the models of the Club of R o m e is, in his view, the fate of High Technology associated with the Acquisition Society. The 'Creative Society' offered as an alternative is in stable or quasi-
vol 2 no 1 january 1981
stable long-term equilibrium with the environment and in it any person can find an interesting and worthwhile job. To achieve this Thring expounds six propositions concerned with population, standards of living, use of energy resources, pollution, 'nonproductive' activities, ethos. The human conscience is to be used as a constant guide particularly with respect to duty to one's neighbours, to the world, and to oneself. The moving notions here seem to track back to Gurdjieff and, indeed, Thring was subject to some of his influence in the past. Given the choice between the alternatives of a collapse and Utopia the book provides a more detailed survey of ene.rgy, transport and communications, and food and fuel. The section on energy, which takes up a third of the book, is directed towards the proposal that energy use per head in industrialized countries should be leavened down to the current world average. The section on transport is essentially about energy use reduction as is the section on food. Ultimately Thring points to jobs which need to be done to con-
serve the future. He then uses medical engineering as the basis of his demonstration of what engineers can do not only to help their neighbours and the world, but also to develop a healthy life style. Pictures are provided of various machines, such as the walking tractor and the stair-climbing wheelchair. He concludes with his Hippocratic oath for applied scientists and engineers which summarizes the intentions of the book. In this there are echoes of Quakerism, the Protestant work ethic, and the alternative society.
Uneconomic In this book Thrmg is tellLug us much about himself and what he has done in his working life, although that is not the written intendon. One senses that he is handing on his feelings to later generations and that 'Thring's economic principle' sums up his work: 'Whatever is right for m y grandchildren is always uneconomic n o w and almost always impolitic.'
Sydney Gregory
Micros and design T Forester (ed) The microelectronics revolution Basil Blackwell, Oxford (1980) 589pp, £4.95 This a collection of readings on the subject of impacts of microelectronics. It is based upon the distillationof rec.ommendations from a number of people who have been studying the field following the great expansion of interest in the subject. In addition there are several new contributions provided specially for the book. In all some 41 contributions are presented in 9 sections. The impacts are set out in terms of: general applications; applications in industry, the office and their effect on employment and industrial relations; social impact; and the 'information society'. Implications for those of us in design are inevitable. The chosen contributors appear to be competent by repute (and by direct knowledge in the~case of about one-fifth of them). The range of material akeady noted is supplemented by the following built-in aids: section guides to further reading (this in addition to some chapter reference lists); a glossary; an index. It is difficult to see what is
missing for someone requiring a highquality overvLmg with a bias towards the U K situation. The authors include both British and American experts. M y tests on the book involved the use of the index to look up designlinked topics, including production planning, and the use of the author list to pursue a contribution by someone wall known in the field of design theory. This second probe revealed some design comments not identifiable through the index. In addition I turned to the 'alternative society' and to the contributors who deal either with union resistance or management resistance to microelectronics technology since these are topics which are not normally covered in my everyday reading. This is a very good'puttingin-the-picture' book with reference up to late 1979. Not only is it good follow-up reading for nearly every TV programme which deals with microelectronics, it may even be just what the programme producers need. By the standards of today the price is astonishingly low - £4.95 for the paperback version. H Faber
61
Spiritual run-down This exposure to criticism is a pity because the underlying purpose of the book is to consider 'humane technology' (using a phase borrowed from Small is beautiful as the rational alternative to both high technology and radical technology. In pursuing the bad effect of industrialization he quotes largely from the recent list of well known critics without a whisper of some of the mid-Victorian studies and their political derivatives and the practical responses made at the time by engineers, among others. This is the entry into the development of the theme of collapse of civilisation. This he develops through a brief summary of his views on the collapse of previous communities which comes to 'the run down or degeneration of the overall motivation, spirit, or ethos of the social system'. I would have been impressed if he had summarized Arnolt Toynbee on the subject, but this would have meant introducing other factors into the collapse, e g the rise of competing cultures. Remarkable enough his analogy between the likely downfall of our present community and the collapse of the Roman Empire is immediately followed by the set of models sponsored by the Club of Rome which indicate different reasons for likely calamity, in particular pollution and the exhaustion of resources. The fate indicated by the models of the Club of R o m e is, in his view, the fate of High Technology associated with the Acquisition Society. The 'Creative Society' offered as an alternative is in stable or quasi-
vol 2 no 1 january 1981
stable long-term equilibrium with the environment and in it any person can find an interesting and worthwhile job. To achieve this Thring expounds six propositions concerned with population, standards of living, use of energy resources, pollution, 'nonproductive' activities, ethos. The human conscience is to be used as a constant guide particularly with respect to duty to one's neighbours, to the world, and to oneself. The moving notions here seem to track back to Gurdjieff and, indeed, Thring was subject to some of his influence in the past. Given the choice between the alternatives of a collapse and Utopia the book provides a more detailed survey of ene.rgy, transport and communications, and food and fuel. The section on energy, which takes up a third of the book, is directed towards the proposal that energy use per head in industrialized countries should be leavened down to the current world average. The section on transport is essentially about energy use reduction as is the section on food. Ultimately Thring points to jobs which need to be done to con-
serve the future. He then uses medical engineering as the basis of his demonstration of what engineers can do not only to help their neighbours and the world, but also to develop a healthy life style. Pictures are provided of various machines, such as the walking tractor and the stair-climbing wheelchair. He concludes with his Hippocratic oath for applied scientists and engineers which summarizes the intentions of the book. In this there are echoes of Quakerism, the Protestant work ethic, and the alternative society.
Uneconomic In this book Thrmg is tellLug us much about himself and what he has done in his working life, although that is not the written intendon. One senses that he is handing on his feelings to later generations and that 'Thring's economic principle' sums up his work: 'Whatever is right for m y grandchildren is always uneconomic n o w and almost always impolitic.'
Sydney Gregory
Micros and design T Forester (ed) The microelectronics revolution Basil Blackwell, Oxford (1980) 589pp, £4.95 This a collection of readings on the subject of impacts of microelectronics. It is based upon the distillationof rec.ommendations from a number of people who have been studying the field following the great expansion of interest in the subject. In addition there are several new contributions provided specially for the book. In all some 41 contributions are presented in 9 sections. The impacts are set out in terms of: general applications; applications in industry, the office and their effect on employment and industrial relations; social impact; and the 'information society'. Implications for those of us in design are inevitable. The chosen contributors appear to be competent by repute (and by direct knowledge in the~case of about one-fifth of them). The range of material akeady noted is supplemented by the following built-in aids: section guides to further reading (this in addition to some chapter reference lists); a glossary; an index. It is difficult to see what is
missing for someone requiring a highquality overvLmg with a bias towards the U K situation. The authors include both British and American experts. M y tests on the book involved the use of the index to look up designlinked topics, including production planning, and the use of the author list to pursue a contribution by someone wall known in the field of design theory. This second probe revealed some design comments not identifiable through the index. In addition I turned to the 'alternative society' and to the contributors who deal either with union resistance or management resistance to microelectronics technology since these are topics which are not normally covered in my everyday reading. This is a very good'puttingin-the-picture' book with reference up to late 1979. Not only is it good follow-up reading for nearly every TV programme which deals with microelectronics, it may even be just what the programme producers need. By the standards of today the price is astonishingly low - £4.95 for the paperback version. H Faber
61