In modern life, technology is everywhere. However, as a concept, technology is chaotic. In everyday discourse, technology is merely a way of referring to the latest innovations relating to digital devices. Scholars do not fare much better, as all they do is propose competing definitions that cover everything from steelmaking to singing.

In Technology – A Critical History of a Concept, Eric Schatzberg explains why defining technology is so challenging by exploring its three-thousand-year history, a history shaped by the ongoing tensions between literate elites and those engaged in technical work. Since the time of the ancient Greeks, scholars have tended to look down on craftsmen, defining technical work as mere means to achieve objectives set by others.

In contrast, craftsmen have repeatedly opposed this characterization, insisting on emphasizing the dignity, creativity, and cultural utility of their work. The tense relationship between scholars and craftsmen continued from Aristotle through to the nineteenth century, with an intermediary stop at Francis Bacon.

Only in the twentieth century did the modern meanings of technology emerge: technology as industrial arts, technology as applied science, technology as technique. Schatzberg traces the evolution of these three meanings to the present day, in which the discourse about technology has spread everywhere, yet the confusion among the three dominant meanings of technology remains the norm.

Schatzberg demonstrates that only through a humanistic conceptualization of technology will we be able to grasp the complexity that inevitably distinguishes human choices in our contemporary world.