"All That Is Solid Melts into Air": Historians of Technology in the Information Revolution
Rosalind Williams · Technology and Culture · 2000
"I hate traveling and explorers," declares Claude Lévi-Strauss at the outset of Tristes Tropiques. "Yet here I am proposing to tell the story of my expeditions." With similar self-surprise, much as I dislike the reminiscences of university administrators, I find myself proposing to recount some of my own voyages in this realm. Five years ago, when I was offered the job of dean of students and undergraduate education at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, I found myself in an unusual and potentially fortunate situation. As a historian of technology, I realized that administrative duties at MIT would not necessarily divert me from my scholarship, but might even contribute to it. 1