Inventing Accuracy: A Historical Sociology of Nuclear Missile Guidance

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MIT Press, Jan 29, 1993 - Science - 480 pages
"Mackenzie has achieved a masterful synthesis of engrossing narrative, imaginative concepts, historical perspective, and social concern."

Donald MacKenzie follows one line of technology—strategic ballistic missile guidance through a succession of weapons systems to reveal the workings of a world that is neither awesome nor unstoppable. He uncovers the parameters, the pressures, and the politics that make up the complex social construction of an equally complex technology.

 

Contents

Inventing a Black Box
27
Engineering a Revolution
95
Epilogue
106
The Beryllium Baby and the Technological
165
Transforming the Fleet Ballistic Missile
240
The Soviet Union and Strategic Missile Guidance
297
The Construction of Technical Facts
340
Patterns in the Web
382
Uninventing the Bomb
424
Appendix C
440
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About the author (1993)

Donald MacKenzie is Professor of Sociology (Personal Chair) at the University of Edinburgh. His books include Inventing Accuracy (1990), Knowing Machines (1996), and Mechanizing Proof (2001), all published by the MIT Press. Portions of An Engine, not a Camera won the Viviana A. Zelizer Prize in economic sociology from the American Sociological Association.

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