Edward Tenner
 Out of print, but not out of hope. Photo courtesy of Barbie Freidin. |
WelcomeThis is the web site of Edward Tenner, a historian of technology and culture, and a visiting scholar at Rutgers University, Princeton University, and the Smithsonian's Lemelson Center.
“What Wall Street Can Learn from the Dung Beetle”
In 1985, Edward Tenner was an acquisition editor at Princeton University Press, where his list included a new monograph series in animal behavior and a successful bird field guide program. He was also writing for general-interest publications, including Money magazine. This essay originally appeared in May 1985. From the brief but illustrious life of the journal Oxymoron, vol. 2 (2000),"The Fringe," courtesy of the publisher.
Lauren Mandilian's Information Overload, a multimedia M.F.A. thesis at Drexel University, was inspired in part by Why Things Bite Back. I had the honor and pleasure of attending the premiere. For a video of the brilliant performance, please click on the image to the left. -- ET
 This delightful and instructive history of invention shows why National Public Radio dubbed Tenner “the philosopher of everyday technology.” Looking at how our inventions have impacted our world in ways we never intended or imagined, he shows that the things we create have a tendency to bounce back and change us. The reclining chair, originally designed for brief, healthful relaxation, has become the very symbol of obesity. The helmet, invented for military purposes, has made possible new sports like mountain biking and rollerblading. The typewriter, created to make business run more smoothly, has resulted in wide-spread vision problems, which in turn have made people more reliant on another invention—eyeglasses. As he sheds light on the many ways inventions surprise and renew us, Tenner considers where technology will take us in the future, and what we can expect from the devices that we no longer seem able to live without. Reviews and Advance Comments "Within the discourse of the body, Tenner is Dr. Johnson, refuting Bishop Berkeley's solipsism by kicking a stone in the street. He is also an American original, a historian of technology with an unparalleled fund of knowledge about ordinary things--from baby bottles to Barcaloungers--and how they work (or do not work) in everyday life....Seldom has one encountered a more straightforward application of that much-misunderstood intellectual tradition known as American pragmatism. Tenner's method restores pragmatism's original meaning as an ethos rather than a doctrine, less a philosophy than a means of doing without one--a skepticism toward a priori assumptions, an openness to experiment, a willingness to evaluate ideas with respect to their consequences in everyday life. By reconstructing the pragmatic methods of inventors and designers, Tenner captures the dialectical interplay between body technology and body technique." -- Jackson Lears, The New Republic
"...as Tenner reveals, it is not at all obvious that a reliance on technology will be toxic to the meaning, purpose and dignity of human life. Nor has it always been the case that more technology has meant less contact with the 'natural' world. What is thought of as natural is always a product of human interaction with an environment that includes various technologies. They are continuously shaping us as we struggle to make them conform to our will. That ongoing tension may well be a key component in what creates meaning for human beings." -- Arthur L. Caplan, Nature Medicine "Our Own Devices is even more insightful and provocative than Tenner's earlier book in illuminating how contemporary technology changes us as much as we change it. Tenner has become a worthy successor to such luminaries as business philosopher Peter Drucker, social critic Lewis Mumford and historian Lynn White in connecting technology's past, present and future." -- Howard Segal, Nature "[A] memorable mosaic, a big picture that illustrates how human progress is half a matter of striding and half of stumbling. . . . [I]lluminating reading. After reading it, you can't help looking at ordinary objects around you -- or, indeed, on you -- and tipping your metaphorical hat to the scientific geniuses, seismic cultural shifts and accidental blunders that delivered them to you from across the centuries." -- David Pogue, N.Y. Times Book Review "It is entirely to Tenner's credit that his narrative is so compelling, you realise only later just how much new learning he has afforded you. Required reading for anyone interested in the business of creativity." -- The Straits Times (Singapore) "... a Balzacian historian. By 'Balzacian' I mean to suggest the obsessive intensity of that novelist's exploration of every aspect of every subject he pursues. Mr. Tenner writes with clarity, weaving his intricate, elaborate web of insights and discoveries finely enough to achieve the goal stated in the preface – that of finding new ways of looking at the commonplace." -- Stuart Mitchner, Town Topics, Princeton, N.J. "If Henry Petroski is the engineer interpreter of everyday technology, Edward Tenner is its philosopher.... fascinating" -- Scientific American "Tenner's erudite yet approachable style and his way with telling details keep his potentially obscure subject from becoming dry and boring, and those in search of a quirky but cerebral read will be delighted." -- Publishers Weekly "[A] fascinating look at how devices we have created have affected our development..... Tenner's lively writing style (as well as the illustrations of early designs) and appreciation of the politics and economics that accompany scientific developments help put everyday technology in perspective." -- Vanessa Bush, Booklist "...Tenner offers many profound insights into tech and product form and function. He devotes an entire chapter to global spread of flip-flops without once being boring." -- Chris Baker, Wired "The lesson Tenner transmits so cogently, unpredictably, and delightfully is that in the best designs ease and complexity cohabit, furthering and reflecting evolution itself." -- Carlo Wolff, Christian Science Monitor "In this stellar fusion of how we design and use technology, and how technology in turn transforms us, the simple shoestring is a . . . path to understanding everything that matters. . . . Tenner brings both scholarly precision and droll humor to his topics." -- Richard Di Dio, Philadelphia Inquirer "[A] cautionary tale.... The only law that can be said with complete confidence to apply is the law of unforeseen consequences, the law so eloquently stated in the immortal formulation of Thomas "Fats" Waller: One never knows, do one?" -- Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post "Edward Tenner's previous book, 'Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences,' helped win him a cult-following throughout the world. Those who appreciated the author's wit and observations in the earlier book will appreciate his new effort." -- Larry Cox, Tucson Citizen "Edward Tenner puts together knowledge compactly, like solving Rubik's cube. He knows so much and seems to have such fun divulging it." --Alexander Theroux, author of The Primary Colors: Three Essays "Before you buy anything else, buy Our Own Devices by Edward Tenner--with humor and insight, it demonstrates just how oddly a lot of 'can't-live-without' gadgets have affected our bodies." --Bill McKibben, author Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age "A fascinating look at how users of technology are constantly reinventing what is available to better suit their own purposes, thus not only remaking their technologies, but their bodies and lives as well. I consider this essential reading for anyone seeking to be a successful product developer." --James Katz, Rutgers University, author of Machines That Become Us About Edward TennerEdward Tenner is an independent writer, speaker, and consultant on technology and culture. His book Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences has been an international bestseller. His most recent book is Our Own Devices: The Past and Future of Body Technology . After receiving the A.B. from Princeton, a Junior Fellowship of the Harvard Society of Fellows, and the Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, Edward Tenner held teaching and research positions in Chicago and became science editor of Princeton University Press, publishing general interest books and launching competitive series in astrophysics, animal behavior, and earth sciences. Among the works he sponsored were Richard Feynman's last scientific book, QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter and The History and Geography of Human Genes by L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Paolo Menozzi, and Alberto Piazza, which began a new era of human genetics and received the 1994 R.R. Hawkins Award of the Professional and Scientific Division of the Association of American Publishers as the best scientific or professional book of the year. Developing programs in the the history of science and technology, Edward Tenner became engaged with these fields and resumed a writing career that began when he was an undergraduate and contributor to the Daily Princetonian, the Tiger Magazine, and the Princeton Alumni Weekly. His essay on the differences between Harvard, Yale, and Princeton was published simultaneously by all three alumni magazines. In 1991 Edward Tenner received a Guggenheim Fellowship and was appointed a visitor at the Institute for Advanced Study, where he began a project on unintended consequences of technology that was published as Why Things Bite Back. As a fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in 1995-96, he turned to the history of human interactions with everyday objects, which has led to Our Own Devices. Edward Tenner is a visiting scholar of the Department of History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania and a senior research associate of the Jerome and Dorothy Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation, National Museum of American History. He is also affiliated with the Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies of the Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University. He has taught a course in the history of information as a visiting lecturer in the Princeton University Councill of the Humanities and has also held visiting positions in the Princeton Departments of Geosciences and English. Edward Tenner has contributed essays and reviews to many of the leading newspapers and magazines of the U.S. and the U.K., including U.S. News, the Wilson Quarterly, Technology Review, Raritan Quarterly Review, American Heritage of Invention and Technology, Metropolis, the former Industry Standard, and Designer/Builder. He has also contributed to the Web publications Microsoft Slate, and Forbes.com. He is a member of the editorial board of Raritan Quarterly Review and a contributing editor of the Wilson Quarterly. |
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