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Andrew Karvonen’s Politics of Urban Runoff and Daniel Schneider’s Hybrid Nature use case studies in urban stormwater management and sewage treatment infrastructure, respectively, to interrogate the political, technological, and ecological nature(s) of modern cities. Karvonen, primarily analyzing runoff management in Austin, Texas and Seattle, Washington, uses these examples to suggest a “civic politics” of urban infrastructure development that provides a more “relational” perspective on nature and the city. Schneider’s more purely historical account of wastewater management in British and American cities details the conflicts and contradictions inherent in what he calls the “industrial ecosystem” of modern sewage treatment. Taken together, Politics of Urban Runoff and Hybrid Nature provide new insights into the material and ideological struggles involved in managing the environmental and social consequences of urban and suburban life.

Gunpowder began the military revolution that molded the modern world. Relatively narrow technical changes in weapons and tactics on early modern European battlefields set in train the transformation of almost every aspect of Western civilization, argued Michael Roberts in 1956.' Widely discussed and critically challenged, his version of the precise nature and timing of change on the equation's military side now commands only qualified respect.2 But the other side of the equation, Roberts's claim of great social consequences flowing from changing military technique, remains substantially intact. It retains enough plausibility, in fact, to suggest thinking about similar processes in other eras.

This book applies the approach of technology assessment to the telephone. The author's analysis forecasts the effect of the telephone on society and compares it with the reality. This book not only examines the social consequences of the telephone, but provides a model for future efficient assessments of new technologies. It documents a largely unknown piece of the history of American technology and anlayzes the requirements for success in technological forecasting.