Today, we face great challenges: climate change; the threatened breakdown of unsustainable energy, mobility, and healthcare systems; growing economic inequality; and security and privacy threats, to name a few. Until a decade ago technologists were still slow to respond to these emerging crises. But that has changed: today, engineering organizations, the engineering sciences, and companies are addressing these challenges. They work on everything from sustainable energy, mobility, and materials to personal medicine, encryption and inclusive innovation. Employers require engineers to understand the societal, business, and user aspects of technology. Employers also require engineers to be equipped to work in multidisciplinary teams that represent different stakeholders. Engineering education addresses these issues in the training of future engineers.

Drawing lessons from the past, Engineering the Future contributes to the debate on the role of engineering in an age of great challenges. This book revisits two centuries of social history of technology and engineering. The history of technology as an academic discipline brings together history and engineering. As such, history of technology has always sought to bridge “two cultures”—the sciences and the humanities. Studying the role of technology in history reminds humanities scholars—especially historians—of the ways in which technology and engineering matter in the making of the modern world (for better or for worse). Interpreting engineering in its broader historical and social context also invites engineers to see beyond technology hypes and tech scares. Exploring the history of technology allows us to discuss where the field comes from and where it is going.

This book was originally written to introduce the Eindhoven University of Technology's engineering students to the role of social groups and issues in engineering. The existing broad-strokes social histories of technology in English have been written by American scholars; this book takes into account more of the European experience. The book was made possible by many people's committed efforts. We would like to thank Anthonie Meijers and Johan Schot for laying the foundations of the introductory history and ethics course at Eindhoven University of Technology. We are also grateful to that course's lecturers and students for their valuable insights and comments over the past years.