1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910253307403321

Autore

Hornborg Alf

Titolo

Global Magic : Technologies of Appropriation from Ancient Rome to Wall Street / / by Alf Hornborg

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New York : , : Palgrave Macmillan US : , : Imprint : Palgrave Macmillan, , 2016

ISBN

9781137567871

1137567872

Edizione

[1st ed. 2016.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (VII, 201 p.)

Collana

Palgrave Studies in Anthropology of Sustainability, , 2945-6665

Disciplina

306.3

Soggetti

Sociology

Religion and sociology

Culture

Ethnology

Environmental sciences - Social aspects

Sociology of Religion

Sociology of Culture

Sociocultural Anthropology

Environmental Social Sciences

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Sommario/riassunto

This book explores the conventional modern understanding of technology and the idea that technological progress is illusory, deriving from a local, European perspective on what has historically been a global process of accumulation and asymmetric resource transfers. Globalized technologies are based on differences in wages and the prices of natural resources in different parts of the world. Their magic consists of enabling affluent people to exert power over others while hiding the extent to which this power is dependent on the public conceptions about technology. The reconceptualization of globalized technology proposed here will benefit current deliberations on sustainability, as it advocates fundamental transformations of the



economy, rather than technological utopianism.