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Scholarship on Latin America's history of technology has expanded significantly in recent years. By reviewing articles in English- and Spanish-language journals from 2012 to the first half of 2023, we illustrate the emerging themes, geographies, and methodologies in this literature. The four main themes we identify are industrialization, institutions and policies, infrastructure, and moving beyond technological adaptation. We also highlight two emerging themes: Indigenous technologies and the circulation of knowledge. We conclude that the scholarship has generally moved in three directions: the study of technologies associated with traditional economic activities in the region (e.g. monocrop agriculture), national industrialization and modernization processes, and cases that demonstrate alternative ways of knowing the world and how communities use these types of knowledge. We suggest that deepening the connections between these three lines of research could be fruitful for future work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines a long-standing question in the history of technology concerning the trope of the living machine. The authors do this by using a cutting-edge computational method, which they apply to large collections of digitized texts. In particular, they demonstrate the affordances of a neural language model for historical research. In a deliberate maneuver, the authors use a type of model, often portrayed as sentient today, to detect figures of speech in nineteenth-century texts that portrayed machines as self-acting, automatic, or alive. Their masked language model detects unusual or surprising turns of phrase, which could not be discovered using simple keyword search. The authors collect and close read such sentences to explore how figurative language produced a context that conceived humans and machines as interchangeable in complicated ways. They conclude that, used judiciously, language models have the potential to open up new avenues of historical research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A true history of industrial technology and innovation must factor in the history of labor and skill required to make a specific product. Mainstream perspectives on industrialization in Britain's cotton industry view technological change in spinning as motivated by productivity gains, facilitated by the fortuitous availability of high-quality, long-staple cotton. However, material evidence shows British cotton textiles advanced to match Indian cloth quality, suggesting that spinning machinery also evolved apace to achieve product quality. This article demonstrates that alongside the cotton staple, the spinner's skill and dexterity determined final cloth quality. The three main spinning machines were technically path dependent, with mechanized spinning of fine cotton based on the original Indian jersey wheel technology. Technological innovations mainly focused on improving product quality, with mechanization a means to bridge the British skill gap in cotton spinning. Histories of labor and skill are therefore at the heart of innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Craft and mechanization are often cast as antithetical. This article questions the facile distinction by examining the customization and modification of American spinning machines to China's diverse local conditions, especially its varieties of cotton. It draws on machine manuals and contracts, engineering textbooks and journals, and correspondence between an American machine firm and its engineers in Shanghai. Engaging with the revisionist scholarship of industrialization that highlights craft continuing into the age of mass production, as well as recent studies challenging Western- and inventioncentered narratives in the history of technology, this article argues that the skills and knowledge that Chinese users of foreign machines possessed were critical elements in mechanization. It establishes the "hand" and the "machine" as mutually constitutive categories on the factory floor, presenting Chinese engineers and technicians as active participants in the coconstruction of global spinning technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the book "Le acque agitate della patria" by Giacomo Bonan, the author explores the industrialization of the Piave River from 1882 to 1966. The Piave Valley became a hub for hydropower generation, with numerous power stations, dams, and other infrastructure built during this period. The Vajont Dam, known for its engineering feat and the tragic landslide that occurred in 1963, is a prominent example of this development. Bonan argues that business interests, technocracies, and technological dreams drove the industrialization of the river, despite changes in political regimes. The book also examines the complex relationship between the environment, technology, and economy in this process. [Extracted from the article]

Since the 1950s, historians have sought to explain industrial modernization in Meiji Japan as a model for developing countries. They typically attribute Japan's success to single factors such as accumulated knowledge or capital, visionary leadership, or technological choice. This article moves beyond mono-causality to examine technology transfer's role in industrial modernization. Tomioka Silk Filature and Osaka Cotton Spinning Mill make the case that components of industrialization were interrelated and a new socio-technological system was essential for technology transfer to affect a Kuhnian-style paradigm shift. Tomioka is an example of ad hoc industrialization, the gradual integration of transferred technologies, and creation of associated regimes leading to a new socio-technological system. In contrast, Osaka Cotton Mill embodies the creation of a new industrial paradigm for Japanese industry, demonstrating the essentiality of integrating numerous socio-technological elements such as adapted artifacts, bio-materials, accumulated knowledge, factory management, and geographic location. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan's Meiji oligarchs put a premium on technologies that projected "civilization" and "modernity" and operated under the assumption that industrial technologies could be operationalized reasonably promptly. Their faith flew in the face of production experience. The case of metallurgical coke manufacturing offers an example of what happened when imported technological systems dead-ended on the fctory floor. Examining the production records of a Meiji-era chemical start-up, this article brings to focus the scope and scale of the creative labor needed to make imported technologies work on the ground. In so doing, it showcases innovative forces that formed the fabric of Japan's early industrialization as a corrective to the much-criticized but resilient notion that the country's industrial takeoff was enabled largely by technology transfer and local appropriation. By highlighting the creativity involved in designing coal inputs, this article opens new perspectives on the history of coals in East Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Western Technology and China's Industrial Development: Steamship Building in Nineteenth-Century China, 1828-1895 By Hsien-ch'un Wang. Western Technology and China's Industrial Development: Steamship Building in Nineteenth-Century China, 1828-1895 by Hsien-ch'un Wang (review) Historians interested in the history of science will find much important and useful information in Wang's book on China's knowledge of Western sciences at the time. [Extracted from the article]

For over four decades, Cold War politics shaped technology and business developments in European and North American military-industrial businesses. However, Matala shows how Finnish businesses navigated Cold War politics to their advantage and gained substantial leverage. Nevertheless, I recommend Matala's book for anyone with an interest in the dynamics between politics, technology, and business during the Cold War. [Extracted from the article]

In what Haumann calls this "self-binding" process, specific limestone variants became interconnected with distinct blast furnace designs and operations. In the final chapter, Haumann gives the book an interesting twist by highlighting the afterlife of limestone quarrying endeavors. By investigating this history from a limestone angle, Haumann has developed an original and interesting narrative to understand the economic developments and social and ecological impacts of the infamous German iron and steel industries. [Extracted from the article]

The Humboldt Current supports a plethora of fish, particularly anchovetas and sardines, small fish that can be made into fishmeal and fish oil. After providing a long history of the Humboldt Current and a background to the industrial uses of fish products from 1840-1930, Wintersteen looks closer at the history of the region's fishing industries. The differing histories of fishmeal production in Peru and Chile offer a compelling story of the impact of state regulations, technology, and the environment. [Extracted from the article]