University of Melbourne
JOINT
HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
SEMINAR
Professor R A Buchanan
THEORY AND PRACTICE IN THE HISTORY OF
TECHNOLOGY
Thursday 1 October 1992, 4.15 p.m.
Theatre D, Old Arts Building
Professor Buchanan is one of Britain's leading social historians and an acknowledged authority in the history of British
technology, the engineering profession, and industrial archaelogy. His most recent publications include "Industrial
Archaeology of Central Southern England (with C.A. Buchanan)(1980), "Brunel's Bristol" (with Michael Williams) (1986),
"The Engineers: a History of the Engineering Profession in Britain" (1989), and "The Power of the Machine" (1992). He is
the Founder and Director of the Centre for the History of Technology, Science and Society at the University of Bath,
Director of National Cataloguing for the Archives of Contemporary Scientists, a Royal Commissioner for the Royal
Commission on Historical Monuments, Secretary for the Research Committee on Industrial Archaeology of the Council for
British Archaeology, and Secretary General of the International Committee for the History of Technology. He will be
discussing some of the trends emerging in Europe and America in the history of technology.