Mikael Hård
The cultural appropriation of technology in Germany around 1900.

Historians of philosophy often claim that a fundamental opposition between modern technology and national culture developed in Germany, beginning in the latter part of the 19th century. On the basis of recent literature from the history of technology and a few illustrative case studies from the areas of municipal and electrical engineering, the author argues that this opposition characterized the opinions of a relatively small number of intellectuals, but it was not representative of the German population as a whole. Although it is, of course, possible to find critical "mandarins," their attacks on modern technology were colored by idealism, and they were generally not reproduced by other circles.