The Nature of Power

Synthesizing the History of Technology and Environmental History

Bibliographic Data

ID4020474
AuthorsEdmund Russell (0000-0001-7504-0304, University of Virginia), James Allison, James Robert Allison (0000-0003-1437-2828), Thomas Finger, Thomas D Finger, John K Brown, Brian Balogh, W Bernard Carlson
Year2011
Volume52
Issue2
Pages246-259
Publication date2011-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueTechnology and Culture (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0040-165X • E-ISSN: 1097-3729
PublisherProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1353/tech.2011.0071
PMID21797080
OpenAlexW2143158039
LanguageEN
Citations received23
References cited15

The Nature of PowerSynthesizing the History of Technology and Environmental History Edmund Russell (bio), James Allison (bio), Thomas Finger (bio), John K. Brown (bio), Brian Balogh (bio), and W. Bernard Carlson (bio) On the evening of 2 May 1878, the Washburn A Mill in Minneapolis erupted in flames, sending the flourmill's concrete roof flying several hundred feet in the air. Neighboring buildings were flattened and pandemonium filled the streets. One-third of the city's business district burned to [End Page 246] the ground, while the explosion shattered windows far across the Mississippi River in St. Paul. In all, eighteen people were killed.1 The Minneapolis mill explosion provides a touchstone for this essay on the intersection of the history of technology with environmental history. Interest in the intersection of these fields has grown rapidly over the past decade. Envirotech, a group of scholars in both the history of technology and environmental history, is one of the largest interest groups in the Society for the History of Technology.2 Our goal here is not to review the burgeoning "envirotech" literature in any exhaustive way, which was first covered a dozen years ago in a Technology and Culture review essay that remains fresh in its coverage and insight. This now-classic review has recently been updated in a historiographic article included in a new collection of essays on specific themes sited at the intersection of the two fields.3 Instead, in this essay we zero in on a concept that links the two fields and, we believe, could be used to develop fresh insights into history. The concept is power. The idea for this essay began with the observation that historians use the term "powerful" in two senses. One sense is physical: the mill in Minneapolis experienced a powerful explosion. The other sense is social: the mill belonged to a powerful proprietor, formerly a Union general and Wisconsin governor. Usually, we think of physical and social power as distinct phenomena, a habit encouraged by the disciplinary structure of academic research. Physicists study physical power, social scientists study social power, and the two disciplines use different language and concepts to express their understanding. One can easily assume that physical power and social power are unrelated. If true, then the use of "powerful" to describe physical and social processes is simply a case of a word having more than one meaning: "powerful" might happen to work in both the physical and social contexts, just as "fast" describes both a rate of movement of an object and a hard-partying group of friends. We wondered, though, if the use of the same term in two contexts might be more than a coincidence. Might the common use give us some [End Page 247] analytical purchase on history? Might physical and social power have some common features? Might physical and social power originate, function, and affect the world in similar ways? Might they have some causal connection, with one influencing the other? Might they be two faces of the same coin? We were not the first to ask these kinds of questions, and this essay capitalizes on the insights of other scholars to develop an analytical framework for understanding power. Our thesis is that all power, social as well as physical, derives from energy. From that insight, we can improve our understanding of the past by tracing the flow of energy and its application as power. This argument rests upon several propositions: 1. Most of the energy used by life on earth arrived as sunlight. 2. History is largely the story of the capture, transformation, and application of this solar energy. 3. Nature, technology, and people have all played essential roles in these transformations and applications. 4. Power is energy put to work, and all organisms use energy to stay alive, so all organisms exercise some power. 5. Energy can be concentrated, which has enabled some people to deploy more power than others. These ideas can lead to a reconsideration of major events in history, as we demonstrate by reassessing some familiar chapters in the Industrial Revolution. With their common interest in the material world, the history of technology and environmental history make a

Archaeology · Art history · Cartography · Dozen · Economic history · Environmental history · Geography · History of technology · Intersection (aeronautics) · Mill · Power (physics) · American Environmental and Regional History · American History and Culture · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History

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