Books by Rutgers Faculty
Exploring the origins and outcomes of American technological dominance
Archived article from Feb 20, 2006
By Pam Orel
America’s efforts to use technology to shape non-Western societies have had surprising results, ranging from indigenous resistance to military reprisals that run counter to the United States’ interests, according to a new book by historian Michael Adas.
“Dominance by Design: Technological Imperatives and America’s Civilizing Mission” (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006) examines how technology has shaped America’s approach to domestic and foreign policy from colonial America to the present day, often with unexpected results.
The book probes the origins and outcomes of this belief in destiny and technological innovation as a critical force in shaping the global destiny of the United States. While technology and American culture have been studied separately by historians, Adas’ research explores how both have worked together to shape American interactions with non-Western peoples.
“This approach can be traced back to the first European settlers,” says Adas, the Abraham E. Voorhees Professor and Board of Governors Chair of the history department in New Brunswick. “The first colonists felt justified in displacing indigenous peoples, whom they saw as being less efficient in their use of the plentiful resources of the continent.”
Westward migration in the 18th and early 19th centuries created new routes and railroad lines that brought increasing numbers of settlers, which put greater pressure on the resources that had sustained native societies dependent on hunting and gathering for food. Early American visitors to Asia showed off American technology to impress imperial leaders and encourage international trade. For example, Admiral Matthew Perry’s expedition to Japan in 1843-1844 included a fleet of modern ships – and a miniature train.
Americans always aspired to reach the next summit in terms of innovation, but their faith in technology was often misplaced, Adas says. Sophisticated military technology enabled the United States and its allies to achieve victory in World War II, but it was stymied two decades later in Vietnam. Large public works projects lifted America out of the Great Depression, but through much of the Cold War era, similar projects in emerging post-colonial Asian and African nations encouraged inappropriate development.
Adas closes with the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, which exposed the vulnerability of America’s sophisticated technological systems to terrorist attacks. The guerrilla terrorist forces aligned with al-Qaeda may not launch another massive assault on American soil, but the threat of attack has increased public spending on homeland security and created a climate of fear that imperils American liberties.
“In the broadest perspective of global history, the paradoxical vulnerability of the first hyperpower – fixed in human memory by the collapse of the Twin Towers – may both undermine the civil rights and unsettle the multiethnic accommodation that are among the supreme achievements of the American experiment in representative government,” he writes.
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