| Person in charge of the project: |
Engineering a New World. The Role of Engineers in Modern Society, 1815 – c. 1890.
|
|
Engineers played a key role in the industrialisation, #technisation# and mechanisation of modern society. They were not merely perceived as neutral experts, but rather as highly esteemed, even pivotal figures in society, as partners and actors in the development of modernity. The complex interaction between the engineers as a professional group and modern society has only rarely been the subject of a systematic historical analysis; also, current research on the subject often lacks an international framework and perspective.
This research will focus on the professional self-image of engineers, the way in which they represented themselves as technical and managerial experts, c.q. the societal functions and characteristics ascribed to them in civil society. In particular, we will investigate how these representations interacted with the development of the modern engineering sciences (c.q. the scientific and professional training of the engineers), the nineteenth-century #économie politique# (staatshuiskunde) and industrial development, the formation of public administrations of the new nation-states.
The timeframe is the period from 1815 to c. 1890; i.e. from the new international order of modern nation states established at the Treaty of Vienna to the end of the nineteenth century, when a new industrial revolution, an increasing professional specialisation, and the rise of new socio-political and economic theories and configurations changed the face of engineering again. The evolving social functions of engineering and its interaction with modern society will be studied in a comparative manner within four national contexts: Belgium, England, France and Prussia/Germany.
|
| |
Project number:
3E090283
Duration of the project:
29.09.2008 - 29.09.2012
Funded research
Nederlands
|
