Crap. Just found another resource that I could have used for a paper I wrote on cathedrals, knowledge, et al.

Masons, tricksters and cartographers : comparative studies in the sociology of scientific and indigenous knowledge / David Turnbull. Turnbull. 2000. DBW HM651.T875 2000

Some more reading

My reading list is getting bigger. I'm going to have to start weeding!



When information came of age: technologies of knowledge in the age of reason and revolution, 1700-1850. Headrick. 2000. DBW CB203.H39 2000

Building the trident network: a study in the enrollment of people, knowledge, and machines. Mort. 2002. DBW V993.M67 2002

Knowledge and persuasion in Economics. McCloskey. 1994. DBW HB71.M378 1994

The invisible industrialist: manufacturers and the production of scientific knowledge. Gaudilliere and Lowy. 1998. BUS T175.I59 1998

Reinforced concrete and the modernization of American building. Slaton. 2001.

A Nation transformed by Information: How information has shaped the United States from Colonial Times to the Present. 2000. DBW HC110.I55N37 2000

Management consulting: emergence and dynamics of a knowledge industry. Kipping and Engwall. 2002 BUS HD69.C6M3625 2002

Builders: Herman and George Brown. Pratt and Castaneda. 1999.

Stalin's Railroad: Turksib and the Building of Socialism. Payne. 2001. DBW HE3140.T87P39 2001

Statistics and the German State, 1900-1945: The making of modern economic knowledge. Tooze. 2001. DBW HC285.T668 2001

The practice of everyday life. de Certau. 1984. DBW HN8.C4313 1984

Non-paces: introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity. Auge. 1995.

Heidegger, Habermas and the Mobile Phone. Myerson. 2001.

Disaster and Recovery : The black death in Western Europe

I recently learned that the RAND corporation provides most of their reports for free in electronic form. I spend one very interesting day learning about gun violence in schools, electronic warfare, and the military capacity of China. One article however really caught my eye. I think it's worth a read. To pique your interest, here's the abstract:

The Black Death--the great plague of 1348-50--and its aftermath constitute one of the very greatest disaster-recovery experiences ever recorded. The short-term consequences of the disaster include a degree of socio-political disorganization (for example, flight from cities), and changed income and status relationships due to the enhanced economic position of newly scarce labor. A rapid recovery took place in the next decade, without fundamental disruption of economic or political systems. The century following, however, saw a slow-down or reversal in the rate of economic advance of Western Europe. The extent to which this setback may have been due specifically to the 1348-50 plague is subjected to examination, in the light of other pressures and burdens upon economic performance in this area; these include disruptive wars, possibly climactic changes, and the contiuing drains of the plague as a result of the establishment of sources of infection in Western Europe. Although direct inferences as to possible nuclear wars can hardly be drawn from this 14th century catastrophe, the historical record does not support contentions that either social collapse or an economic downward spiral is a necessary consequence of massive disaster.

I'm still not sure how to analyze this thing. Should I explore the method? Or the content? Or the ramifications?