The Neology: A History of the Technological Society in Four Words

FAIN: FEL-273803-21

Angus Burgin
Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, MD 21218-2608)

Research and writing leading to a book of intellectual history on the 20th-century origin and development of four key technological concepts.

This project provides a tour through the emergence and evolution of four words often invoked to describe the technological society: automation, globalization, cyberspace, and neoliberalism. Each of these terms inspired vast literatures that dwelled on the implications of emerging technologies: the promise and peril of a world without work, an economy without borders, a space without material constraints, a frictionless competitive order. And yet in recent decades each has proven less revolutionary than early advocates had imagined: working hours intensified, tariffs returned, online identities were increasingly constrained by corporations and states, and the primacy of the economy came under resurgent criticism from both left and right. Drawing on both archival research and the integrative tools of concept history, The Neology tells the story of a society in which institutions transformed much less quickly than their underlying technologies, with increasingly catastrophic results.