Thomas P. Hughes

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Thomas Hughes did his graduate work in European History at the University of Virginia. He has published books on American and European history with special attention to the history of modern technology, science, and culture.

Networks of Power: Electrification of Western Society, 1880-1930 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983) and Elmer Sperry: Inventor and Engineer (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1971) won the Dexter Prize for outstanding books in the history of technology. American Genesis: A Century of Invention and Technological Enthusiasm, 1870-1970 (Viking, 1989; Penguin, 1990) was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History, 1990. With Agatha Hughes, he edited Lewis Mumford: Public Intellectual (Oxford University Press, 1990) and Systems, Experts and Computers (MIT Press, 2000). Among his essays are "Walther Rathenau: System Builder" in Ein Mann Vieler Eigenschaften: Walther Rathenau und die Kultur der Moderne (Klaus Wagenbach, 1990); L'Histoire comme Systemes en Evolution, (Annales, 1998), pp. 839-57; and Designing, Developing, and Reforming Systems (Daedalus, 1998), pp. 215-32. His most recent book Rescuing Prometheus (Pantheon Books, 1997) is about managing the creation of large technological systems. He is now completing a cultural history of technology since 1800.

Professor Hughes is a Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa. The Society for the History of Technology awarded him the Leonardo da Vinci Medal; the Society for the Social Studies of Science gave him the John Desmond Bernal Award. The Johns Hopkins University named him a member of the Society of Fellows. The Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm awarded him an Honorary Doctorate in Engineering in 2000 and Northwestern University conferred a Doctorate of Humane Letters in 2001.

He has been a Visiting Professor at the Wissenschaftszentrum (Center for the Study of Social Sciences), Berlin; the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm; Technische Hochschule, Darmstadt; New School for Social Research; Stanford University; and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has been a Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Study, Berlin. Among his fellowships are the Guggenheim and Fulbright. He has been chairman of the Department of the History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania; chairman of the NASA History Advisory Committee; chairman of the U.S. National Committee for the History and Philosophy of Science; and president of the Society for the History of Technology. He has been a presenter for BBC/NOVA and Swedish National Television. He has been a history consultant for ABC Television. He chaired a National Research Council Committee on "Computing and Communications: Lessons from History" and is a member of the NRC Committee on Technological Literacy. Agatha Hughes (1924-1997) has been his long-time editor and adviser.from History and is a member of the NRC Committee on Technological Literacy. Agatha Hughes (1924-1997) has been his long-time editor and adviser.