Monsters
The Hindenburg Disaster and the Birth of Pathological Technology
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- $19.99
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
"Oh, the humanity!" Radio reporter Herbert Morrison's words on witnessing the destruction of the Hindenburg are etched in our collective memory. Yet, while the Hindenburg -- like the Titanic -- is a symbol of the technological hubris of a bygone era, we seem to have forgotten the lessons that can be learned from the infamous 1937 zeppelin disaster.
Zeppelins were steerable balloons of highly flammable, explosive gas, but the sheer magic of seeing one of these behemoths afloat in the sky cast an irresistible spell over all those who saw them. In Monsters, Ed Regis explores the question of how a technology now so completely invalidated (and so fundamentally unsafe) ever managed to reach the high-risk level of development that it did. Through the story of the zeppelin's development, Regis examines the perils of what he calls "pathological technologies" -- inventions whose sizeable risks are routinely minimized as a result of their almost mystical allure.
Such foolishness is not limited to the industrial age: newer examples of pathological technologies include the US government's planned use of hydrogen bombs for large-scale geoengineering projects; the phenomenally risky, expensive, and ultimately abandoned Superconducting Super Collider; and the exotic interstellar propulsion systems proposed for DARPA's present-day 100 Year Starship project. In case after case, the romantic appeal of foolishly ambitious technologies has blinded us to their shortcomings, dangers, and costs.
Both a history of technological folly and a powerful cautionary tale for future technologies and other grandiose schemes, Monsters is essential reading for experts and citizens hoping to see new technologies through clear eyes.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The 1937 burning of the Hindenberg was a worldwide sensation and the first filmed disaster, and science writer Regis (What Is Life?) adds that the development of the zeppelin itself represented a new, ominous technological phenomenon. The work is primarily a history of the rigid airship and biography of its eponymous champion, German count Ferdinand von Zeppelin. Beginning in 1890, Count Zeppelin built a series of huge, hydrogen-fueled airships of Rube Goldberg complexity that regularly crashed and burned. Yet Germans were fascinated, and he had little trouble raising money. By 1906, zeppelins were carrying passengers; international flights began after WWI. Despite frequent mishaps, culminating in the Hindenburg debacle, years passed before Germany gave up on zeppelins. Regis calls this an example of pathological technology: irrationally popular projects whose costs vastly exceed benefits. Concluding chapters address America's Operation Plowshare, the plan to use nuclear bombs for major construction projects; the Superconducting Supercollider, a massive particle accelerator canceled in 1993; and the 100-Year Starship, the brainchild of an enthusiastic group whose goals include establishing "Earth 2.0 in another solar system" by 2112. Regis's material is all fascinating, but it fails to properly cohere; the book's premise feels like an ingenious afterthought tacked onto a fine history of Zeppelin and his disastrous airships.
