Rosalind Williams: "The Triumph of Human Empire" | Talks at Google

Rosalind Williams visited Google's Cambridge MA to discuss her new book on February 26, 2014.

The Triumph of Human Empire surveys the overarching historical event of our time: the rise and triumph of human empire, defined by the dominance of human presence on the planet. The book examines the works and lives of three well-known writers (Jules Verne, William Morris, and Robert Louis Stevenson) to illuminate the event of consciousness at the end of the l9th century, when humans realized that they were close to mapping the entire globe and that the global frontier was closing. Human Empire is about a still-unfolding event of consciousness, as grasped by three writers exceptionally successful in conveying its depth and significance.


Rosalind Williams is an MIT professor who studies the interplay of technology and imagination on topics ranging from consumer culture to fictional underworlds. She served as MIT's first Dean of Students and Undergraduate Education and later as head of the MIT Program in Science, Technology, and Society. She frequently consults with other universities in the U.S. and abroad on engineering education and has received honorary degrees from two of them. Besides giving numerous invited lectures, Rosalind Williams has been interviewed on WGBH, WBUR, and Dutch national public television and will soon appear on The BBC Forum. She has served as president of the international Society for the History of Technology, which recently awarded her its highest honor, the Leonardo da Vinci Medal. This is her fourth book.