This chapter explores the direct experiences of renowned record producers, working with metal music, to construct an in-depth understanding of the genesis, and development, of recorded metal music. Technological democracy has changed the experience of making metal records, affording creative flexibility and control that would historically have been out of reach, technologically and financially. Multitrack technologies and fragmented production processes are also examined. Framed by the experiences of producers that have shaped the recording careers of artists such as Black Sabbath and Judas Priest, this chapter links the direct experiences of record-making to musical, sociocultural and technological development.

Four planet-level dangers loom over humankind in the coming hundred years, requiring solutions that can only be achieved through planet-level strategies and instruments. Reversing climate change requires a concerted effort among all the world’s peoples to decarbonize their economies and energy systems as swiftly as possible, while ramping up new technologies for removing accumulated carbon dioxide. Nuclear weapons will continue to pose an existential threat as long as nations vie with each other in a zero-sum competition for power and dominance. Naturally occurring or bioengineered pandemics threaten human well-being, and can only be mitigated via a comprehensive system of global regulation. Artificial intelligence proffers many tantalizing benefits, but will also create extreme risks unless humankind finds ways to control the development of these powerful machines. The historical track record suggests that these challenges, while daunting, can realistically be surmounted by concerted action.

This chapter examines the social construction of technology (SCOT) perspective. This perspective examines how people shape technology use toward their own ends, and why deterministic models of media use fail to account for how people actually use technology. This chapter contrasts a relational approach from competing perspectives, especially technology-centered ones. Technological determinism and media domestication are examined. The SCOT perspective is brought into dialogue with constructivist theories of personal relationships and with dialectical and ironic perspectives on media’s influence on relationships. Three social factors influencing the use of technology are explored: norms of technology use, using technology to access important others, and make-do or seemfulness.

Introduces the argument that technological change draws on existing social and economic structures in order to succeed, even while destroying or transforming them. Those institutions and expectations, however, are themselves changing in order to make new machines work. A literature review guides readers through the methods and approaches developed in the history of technology and deployed in the text. These include the divide between internalist and contextual analysis, between the causation claims inherent in technological determinism and social constructivism, and the effort to reconcile the two in actor-network theory and in maintenance studies. This historiographical overview also briefly addresses the approaches found in economic history, national and global history, and social and labor and environmental history, and shifts the Big Question in the history of Industrial Revolution historiography from “Why did England industrialize?” to “Why did these specific machines work then and there?”

Culture is a key determinant in organizational effectiveness and plays an enormous role in the lives of military organizations. Cultural biases often result in unstated assumptions that have a deep impact on strategy, operational planning, doctrinal creation, and organization and training of armed forces. The impact of culture on military affairs often remains opaque for years, if not decades, after the events it has affected. Leadership is essential to creating and maintaining organizational culture. Leaders who can shape an organization’s culture from its inception have an outsized influence on its future orientation. Leaders, therefore, must be discriminating when establishing the initial culture of an organization, for once embedded, that culture will prove extraordinarily difficult to change. But even superb leaders are limited. Selection of the right subordinate leaders is critical if an organization’s culture is to survive a leadership transition. Some military organizations do change, assisted by cultures that embrace innovation and a reasonable degree of risk-taking. Organizational culture takes on the characteristics of wider societal culture, but when the military becomes a caste apart, the result can be the degradation of its ethical foundations. Military organizations often have subcultures with significant influence on the larger organization. Technology-centric forces must not allow a culture focused on technological excellence to turn into one centered on technological determinism. Professional military education is critical in sustaining organizational culture.