Western science and technology are the motors that drive social progress; no other knowledge system comes anywhere close. It's a widely held view, an example of Western exceptionalism and triumphalism -- but is it correct? The philosopher of science Sandra Harding talks about knowledge appropriation, the failure of "development," and the value and sophistication of non-Western ways of thinking.

The photographer Eadweard Muybridge met Leland Stanford at a time when technological breakthroughs were beginning to alter myriad aspects of everyday life. Muybridge's innovations paved the way for cinema, Stanford's obsessions fueled the beginnings of Silicon Valley, and Rebecca Solnit has written a book about the consciousness-changing advent of modern technology.

In the world of science and technology, new words are coined, and some of them stick, and the words themselves lead interesting lives and have surprising effects -- technical, social, even political. In his book Virtual Words Jonathon Keats explores the origins, uses, and impact of terms like microbiome, copyleft, Panglish, and singularity.

In the world of science and technology, new words are coined, and some of them stick, and the words themselves lead interesting lives and have surprising effects -- technical, social, even political. In his new book Jonathon Keats explores the origins, uses, and impact of terms like microbiome, copyleft, Panglish, and singularity.

What are you looking at? The Spanish artist Juan Munoz called that his first artistic question. Art critic Michael Brenson has been thinking about that question for a decade; it's changed the way he encounters art. According to Brenson, that question leads to many others, all of which can enhance how we go about engaging with, and learning from, works of art.

In a new book, Jeffrey Juris explores how movement activists are using, and are being influenced by, communications technologies and networks. He claims that the network has become a powerful cultural ideal. Dorothy Kidd has investigated the development of a global movement to democratize communications.