Lewis MumfordTechnique et civilisation

This new translation restores the striking and luminous thought of a man who, almost a century ago, described the deadly future that our societies had to expect if they did not urgently focus on the welfare of humans and the preservation of the environment. Naming the invention of the clock and the sharing of hours in minutes as the starting point of the machine era, Lewis Mumford unravels the three phases – eotechnical, palaeotechnical and neotechnical – of an immense historical fresco in which the machine appears in turn as a virtuous tool, carrying civilization, and as the unconscious agent of alienation and destruction.

Lucid, without complacency towards the military-industrial complex and the financiers, he is already sounding the alarm: «progress» of the industry has led to a chaos made of waste, pollution and the time calls to put the productive system back on the rails of a development favorable to humanity.

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