Conclusion: Cultures of Technological Expertise

Abstract

Preceding chapters have explored steam power, steamship, railway and telegraph technologies in the making (chs 2–5). These chapters have focused on the cultural construction of empires: usually built as personal and business empires but often closely interconnected one with another and in relation to the larger geopolitical empires of the nineteenth century. In this concluding chapter we expand upon several cultures of technological expertise, already touched upon in our specific investigations of the new technologies. These cultures, we suggest, played fundamental roles in generating, promoting and sustaining many of the engineering projects with which we have been concerned.