The Idea of Technological Innovation: A Brief Alternative History

by Benoît Godin

This timely book explores technological innovation as a concept, dissecting its emergence, development and use. Benoît Godin offers an exciting new historiography of the subject, arguing that the study of innovation originates not from scholars but from practitioners of innovation.   Godin looks to engineers, managers, consultants and policymakers as the instigators of our current understanding of technological innovation. Offering a conceptual history of the subject, Part I considers the many iterations of innovation - as an science applied, outcome, process and system - to track and analyse the changing discourses surrounding technological innovation. In Part II, the author turns to historic and contemporary innovation policy to illustrate the critical role that practitioners have had in formulating and strategizing policy.   Effectively rewriting the historiography of the topic, this book is critical reading for scholars of innovation studies, sociology and the history of science and technology. Students will benefit from Godin's pioneering approach to the subject and policymakers will also find value in the book's unique insight into innovation.

208 pages, Hardcover

Published April 1, 2020

About the author

Benoît Godin is a Professor at the Institut national de la recherche scientifique, Montreal.