Nye, David E. 1946- (David Edwin Nye)

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Nye, David E. 1946- (David Edwin Nye)

PERSONAL:

Born June 11, 1946. Education: Amherst College, B.A. (cum laude), 1968; University of Minnesota, M.A., 1971, Ph.D., 1974.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of English, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, DK-5230 Odense M, Denmark. E-mail—nye@hist.sdu.dk.

CAREER:

Union College, Schenectady, NY, assistant professor of American studies, 1974-78, director of American studies, 1978-1981; Odense University, Odense, Denmark, Associate professor, American Studies, 1982-87; Copenhagen University, Copenhagen, Denmark, associate professor of American studies, 1987-1991; University of Southern Denmark, Odense, professor of history and American studies, 1992—; Notre Dame University, South Bend, IN, Welch Visiting Professor in American Studies, 2003; Warwick University, Warwick, England, professor of history and American studies, 2005-06. Served as a visiting scholar at Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, both 1981-82. Center for American Studies, Syddansk University, founder and chair, 1992-96, 1998, 2003-04, 2006—.

MEMBER:

American Studies Association, European Association of American Studies, Danish Association for American Studies, Nordic Association for American Studies, Society for the History of Technology.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Able Wolman Book Award, American Public Works Association, 1991; Dexter Prize, Society for the History of Technology, 1993; Fyens Stiftstidende's Research Prize, 1999; Churchill College, Cambridge University, permanent by-fellow, 1999; Leonardo DaVinci Medal, Society for the History of Technology, 2005.

WRITINGS:

Henry Ford, Ignorant Idealist, Kennikat Press (Port Washington, NY), 1979.

The Invented Self: An Anti-biography, from Documents of Thomas A. Edison, Odense University Press (Odense, Denmark), 1983.

Image Worlds: Corporate Identities at General Electric, 1890-1930, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1985.

(Editor, with Christen Kold Thomsen) American Studies in Transition: Essays, Odense University Press (Odense, Denmark), 1985.

Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology, 1880-1940, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1990.

(Editor, with Carl Pedersen) Consumption and American Culture, VU University Press (Amsterdam, Holland), 1991.

American Technological Sublime, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1994.

(Editor, with Mick Gidley) American Photographs in Europe, VU University Press (Amsterdam, Holland), 1994.

Narratives and Spaces: Technology and the Construction of American Culture, Columbia University Press (New York, NY), 1997.

Consuming Power: A Social History of American Energies, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 1998.

(Editor) Technologies of Landscape: From Reaping to Recycling, University of Massachusetts Press (Amherst, NY), 1999.

America as Second Creation: Technology and Narratives of New Beginnings, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 2003.

Technology Matters: Questions to Live With, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 2006.

Introducing Denmark and the Danes: A Two Hour Briefing, Insight Books (Odense, Denmark), 2006.

Served as scriptwriter for the Danish miniseries, "Inventing Modern America." Also author of the blog After the American Century. Editor or coeditor of numerous collections and journals, including American Studies in Scandinavia, editor, 1996-2003.

SIDELIGHTS:

Writer and educator David E. Nye did his undergraduate work in American studies at Amherst College in Massachusetts, graduating cum laude. He then went on to continue his education at the University of Minnesota, earning both a master's degree and his doctorate. Nye has taught university level courses in American studies around the world, both in the United States and in Spain, the Netherlands, and Denmark, as well as lecturing throughout Europe. He serves on the faculty of the University of Southern Denmark, where he is a professor in the department of American history. Over the course of his career, he has also been a visiting professor at several prominent universities, including Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In addition to his academic duties, he was the first chair of the Odense Center for American Studies, and in 1992 as a part of that role, he founded the OASIS publication series. He has also served on the Danish Association for American Studies and the Nordic Association for American Studies, as president and vice president respectively.

Nye has written or served as editor for a number of books dealing with the effects of technology on American culture and its economy, the history of science, and several American corporate leaders, including titles such as Henry Ford, Ignorant Idealist, The Invented Self: An Anti-biography, from Documents of Thomas A. Edison, Image Worlds: Corporate Identities at General Electric, 1890-1930, Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology, 1880-1940, American Technological Sublime, Narratives and Spaces: Technology and the Construction of American Culture, and America as Second Creation: Technology and Narratives of New Beginnings. In Electrifying America, Nye looks back to the earliest introduction of electricity in America and how the spread of the technology affected the nation socially, culturally, and economically, both at the time and over the years since. Because electricity itself is invisible and generally lacks definition other than through the different ways in which it can be manipulated, Nye considers it to resemble a type of social interaction, requiring two halves in order to exist. As a result, much of his book is devoted to the various individuals whose actions shape or enhance the uses of electricity. Jeffrey L. Meikle, in a contribution for the Business History Review, noted that this can lead to some unnecessary tangents in the book, stating: "The centrifugal expansion of those applications often seems to lead Nye too far from his subject into accounts of such things as the professionalization of the engineer, the rise of managerial capitalism, feminist critiques of domestic economy." Claude S. Fisher, writing for Science, called Nye's work "a tour of an America made anew by electric technology. Like many a whirlwind tour, it can only hit the highlights and cannot dwell at any particular site. But it is worth the journey."

American Technological Sublime looks at the role of developing technologies in the United States and how the superiority of various technologies have impacted the nation's goals. Achieving impressive feats of technology has become intertwined with the United States' self image, as each new accomplishment further solidified the country's position as a global power of advanced capabilities. Nye covers such feats as the building of the Erie Canal, one of the nation's earliest and most visible technological accomplishments, and the expansion of the railroads. He also addresses the darker side of the nation's obsession with technological achievement, which includes the gradually increasing elitist attitude that made such events accessible to only the financiers and political leaders who backed the projects, but closed off to the lowly workers responsible for their execution. He also looks at advances that might be considered from various viewpoints, such as the development of nuclear weaponry. Nye discusses most of the major building projects of the late nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, including the construction of numerous skyscrapers, bridges, dams, factories, and other impressive early technological achievements, with an in-depth look at the World's Fair held in New York in 1939, the culmination of many of the country's advances. He goes on to discuss how, in more modern times, the idea of the sublime appears to have vanished as society takes a more jaded approach to new achievements. Thomas Frick, writing for the Technology Review, remarked that Nye fails to fully explain this more recent turn of events, commenting that he "does not penetrate very far into the profundities of these developments, and at this point in the book, the need to go beyond historical anecdotes and interesting observations becomes pressing."

In America as Second Creation, Nye offers a second look at the numerous inventions credited with helping to create the United States and bring it to greatness, showing how each of them has another story to tell, in which the results are in opposition to those depicted in the more glorifying tales. A prime example is the ax, a tool used to aid in Westward expansion and the settlement of numerous territories with homesteads and new towns. Families traveled west for greater opportunities, including the plentiful land available to anyone willing to clear the land and plant a farm, and the ax was their primary tool for survival in those early years. However, Nye points out that the ax later was blamed for destroying many of the nation's forests, for clearing land faster than it could be replanted, and for ruining the territories traveled by tribes of Native Americans. The same double standard can be applied to the mill, the railroads, and to the dams built across the country, first praised for their technological prowess and their contributions to the advancement of the country, and later criticized for contributing to the destruction of nature. Edward Rothstein, in a review for the New York Times, commented that "in outlining these warring narratives, Mr. Nye inadvertently provides a portrait of how Americans still think about themselves—and also, perhaps, how others still look at them—as bouncing between idealistic images and their extreme inversions."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Scientist, November 1, 2006, "The Fault, Dear Brutus …," p. 568.

Architectural Science Review, December, 2003, "The Place of Technology in American Culture," p. 446.

Booklist, March 1, 2006, Donna Seaman, review of Technology Matters: Questions to Live With, p. 51.

Business History, July, 1992, Howell John Harris, review of Electrifying America: Social Meanings of a New Technology, 1880-1940, p. 205; April, 1999, Sally M. Horrocks, review of Consuming Power: A Social History of American Energies, p. 155.

Business History Review, summer, 1986, review of Image Worlds: Corporate Identities at General Electric, 1890-1930; spring, 1992, Jeffrey L. Meikle, review of Electrifying America.

Canadian Journal of History, August, 2000, Michael J. Prokopow, review of Narratives and Spaces: Technology and the Construction of American Culture, p. 380.

EDN, February 18, 1993, Julie Anne Schofield, review of Electrifying America, p. 6.

Internet Bookwatch, June, 2007, review of Introducing Denmark and the Danes: A Two Hour Briefing.

Issues in Science and Technology, fall, 2006, "Just Say No to Tech Determinism."

Journal of Social History, summer, 2001, Ed Constant, review of Narratives and Spaces.

Library Journal, December, 1997, Robert C. Ballou, review of Consuming Power, p. 144.

New York Times, May 31, 2003, Edward Rothstein, "The Double-Edged Ax of American Technology," p. 11.

Science, May 17, 1991, Claude S. Fischer, review of Electrifying America, p. 981; May 26, 1995, Joseph W. Slade, review of American Technological Sublime, p. 1198; April 24, 1998, M. Granger Morgan, review of Consuming Power, p. 539.

Technology Review, August 1, 1995, Thomas Frick, review of American Technological Sublime, p. 83.

Utopian Studies, spring, 2005, Brian Garvey, review of America as Second Creation: Technology and Narratives of New Beginnings.