"A Modernization of "Peerless Homogeneity

The Creation of Russian Smokeless Gunpowder

Bibliographic Data

ID4026142
AuthorsMichael D Gordin (0000-0001-5853-7503, corresponding author)
Year2003
Volume44
Issue4
Pages677-702
Publication date2003-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueTechnology and Culture (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0040-165X • E-ISSN: 1097-3729
PublisherProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1353/tech.2003.0161
OpenAlexW2005747526
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited17

Past studies of technical choice in military modernization have tended to assume both a unitary view of "technological determinism" and a concept of "modernization" in the singular. Using the case of chemist D. I. Mendeleev's development of a Russian variant of smokeless gunpowder in the 1890s, this article argues for a vision of late-imperial Russia as a site where several different modernizations confronted each other, a debate that was framed in Russian military circles in terms of the value of technical change in the first place. The eventual rejection of Mendeleev's pyrocollodion thus serves as an episode in the history of technological determinism as a category

Archaeology · Determinism · Epistemology · Gunpowder · Modernization theory · Political science · Unitary state · Anthropology: Ethics, History, Culture · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law · Philosophy · Twentieth Century Scientific Developments

Tools

Open DOI