The Golem at large: what you should know about technology

This thin book is the second volume of a contemplated "Golem series." The first volume was titled "The Golem: What You Should Know About Science" and like that, this one describes seven case studies, or "stories," as the authors call them. Bach story involves specific technological events: 1) The role of the Patriot missile in the Gulf War of 1991. 2)Assigning blame for the Challenger explosion of 1986. 3) Two specific demonstrations to "prove" technological desiderata. 4) Disputes about the origins of oil. 5) The failures of macroeconomic modeling. 6) The effects on sheep in Cumbria (Britain) of Chernobyl nuclear fallout. 7) Cures for AIDS and lay expertise. A golem, they say, is a powerful mythological creature who will follow orders and do your work but it is clumsy and dangerous. It is not an evil creature but it is a little daft. The cases they describe flesh out the substance of their conception of "Golem Technology." The reviewer outlines a few of their case studies in order to make comprehensible their conception of the golem.