德国的技术史研究

The History of Technology in the Federal Republic of Germany

德国的技术史研究历程可以分为两个历史时期:上升期和拓展期。19世纪末至20世纪初,致力于出版各类技术发明与商业史的相关著作,并着力保留和整理技术文化相关的实物和档案,推动了早期德国技术史研究的建制化。1960年代之后,德国的技术史研究进入了拓展期。在联邦德国,工业大学和技术博物馆的历史学家们逐渐成为推动技术史研究进一步建制化的主要力量。与早期工程师为主体不同的是,历史学家们主要关注的是生产的历史以及技术发展的一般规律及其背后导致技术变革的各种社会和经济因素。1990年代后,消费史逐渐走入他们的视野,作为其研究的补充。

Wolfgang K?nig describes the development and particularities of the history of technology in Germany.The German history of technology raised and expanded in two historical periods.After the turn of the 19th to the 20th century the history of technology became institutionalized by the German Engineering Association (Verein Deutscher Ingenieure) and its director Conrad Matscho?.They published monographs on technical artifacts and business histories,and documented monuments of technological culture.In the second period since the 1960s,in the Federal Republic,the history of technology became in addition institutionalized by historians at the Technical Universities and at technical museums.The historians focused on the general features of the technological process and on diverse socioeconomic contexts which could explain technical change.In the beginning,they dealt particularly with the history of production.Since the 1990s,this was supplemented by the history of consumption.