The Ghost of the Executed Engineer: Technology and the Fall of the Soviet Union (RUSSIAN RESEARCH CENTER STUDIES)

Graham, Loren

ISBN 10: 0674354362 / ISBN 13: 9780674354364

Editore: Harvard University Press, 1993

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First edition, first printing. Appears to be a book that was shelved, stored, and/or briefly handled but never read. Dust jacket intact and in very good condition with minor wear except for a one inch faded strip on top edge of front DJ. Text block has faint foxing on top edge, but otherwise is clean, bright and tight with no markings, corner creases or other defects noted. Providing superior service since 2001. Dropshippers heartily welcomed.

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Dati bibliografici

• Titolo: The Ghost of the Executed Engineer: Technology and the Fall of the Soviet Union (RUSSIAN RESEARCH CENTER STUDIES)
• Editore: Harvard University Press
• Data di pubblicazione: 1993
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0674354362
• ISBN 13: 9780674354364
• Rilegatura: hardcover
• Edizione: First Edition.
• Condizione: Very Good
• Peso: 14 once

Descrizione articolo

Riassunto

Stalin ordered his execution, but here Peter Palchinsky has the last word. As if rising from an uneasy grave, Palchinsky's ghost leads us through the miasma of Soviet technology and industry, pointing out the mistakes he condemned in his time, the corruption and collapse he predicted, the ultimate price paid for silencing those who were not afraid to speak out. The story of this visionary engineer's life and work, as Loren Graham relates it, is also the story of the Soviet Union's industrial promise and failure.
We meet Palchinsky in pre-Revolutionary Russia, immersed in protests against the miserable lot of laborers in the tsarist state, protests destined to echo ironically during the Soviet worker's paradise. Exiled from the country, pardoned and welcomed back at the outbreak of World War I, the engineer joined the ranks of the Revolutionary government, only to find it no more open to criticism than the previous regime. His turbulent career offers us a window on debates over industrialization. Graham highlights the harsh irrationalities built into the Soviet system - the world's most inefficient steel mill in Magnito-gorsk, the gigantic and ill-conceived hydro-electric plant on the Dnieper River, the infamously cruel and mislocated construction of the White Sea Canal. Time and again, we see the effect of policies that ignore not only workers' and consumers' needs but also sound management and engineering precepts. And we see Palchinsky's criticism and advice, persistently given, consistently ignored, continue to haunt the Soviet Union right up to its dissolution in 1991.
The story of a man whose gifts and character set him in the path of history, The Ghost of the Executed Engineer is also a cautionary tale about the fate of engineering that disregards social and human issues.

Informazioni sull?autore

Loren R. Graham is Professor of the History of Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.