Medieval Robots: Mechanism, Magic, Nature, and Art (The Middle Ages Series)
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.89 (792 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0812246977 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 296 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2016-01-16 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
This original and wide-ranging study reveals the convergence of science, technology, and imagination in medieval culture and demonstrates the striking similarities between medieval and modern robotic and cybernetic visions.. R. Chronicled in romances and song as well as histories and encyclopedias, medieval automata were powerful cultural objects that probed the limits of natural philosophy, illuminated and challenged definitions of life and death, and epitomized the transformative and threatening potential of foreign knowledge and culture. Medieval robots took such forms as talking statues, mechanical animals, and silent metal guardians; some served to entertain or instruct while others performed disciplinary or surveillance functions. A thousand years before Isaac Asimov set down his Three Laws of Robotics, real and imagined automata appeared in European courts, liturgies, and literary texts. Truitt traces the different forms of self-moving or self-sustaining manufactured objects from their earliest appearances in the Latin West through centuries of mechanical and literary invention. E. Variously ascribed to artisanal genius, inexplicable cosmic forces, or demonic pow
Long, author of Openness, Secrecy, Authorship: Technical Arts and the Culture of Knowledge from Antiquity to the Renaissance. Well researched and well written, the book does an excellent job of showing the wider cultural significance of automata within medieval history and the history of science."—Pamela O. "The first comprehensive work of scholarship on European automata of the Middle Ages, Medieval Robots systematically and chronologically works through themes such as the transition from the magical to the mechanical and the liminal status of robots between art and nature, familiar and foreign
Helpful and thorough historical analysis of medieval robots. Dr Lindsay Gerard Sharp In summary the author, a long standing expert in this subject, provides a thorough, thoughtful and helpful historical analysis of Medieval Robots until the mid-to-end C 15. There is a relatively small gap thereafter until the advent of automata in Italy and France in the C. 16 which remains to be filled in a bo. "there's an additional like 50 pages or so of great footnotes--most of them" according to Carl. The whole time I was reading this book I was thinking about Clarke's third law: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” It really hits the difficulty that people of any era have in reconciling the bounds of current knowledge with our experiences in a world full of mar
R. Truitt is Associate Professor of History at Bryn Mawr College. . E