Steven A. Walton
[ homepage ]
[ email ] [Curriculum
Vitae]
202 Old Botany, Penn State, University Park, PA 16802
vox 814.863.9526 • fax 814.865.3047
"I began my career as a mechanical engineer and then turned to the history of engineering through the history of science and technology. I am principally interested in the intersection of technology, its users, and the technical knowledge that they claim to have and use about it. Much of my work, although chronologically diverse, centers on military topics from arms and armor to artillery and the use of scientific instrumentation in war. My teaching focusses on the role of science and technology in the world and I teach on the history and philosophy of technology."
Current projects
I am working on articles and a bookon the history of the Naval Topedo Station in Newport, RI from 1869-1884, on various facets of the West Point Foundry in Cold Spring, NY and it's founder, Gouverneur Kemble, and have been asked to catalog and publish The Scientific Instruments at the Royal Artillery Institution to 1914 (The RAI is in Woolwich, UK, and the book will come out in later 2008 or early '09). A further book project over the next few years is entitled The Military Scientific Gentleman: Early modern origins of scientific military professionalism.
Recent Publications
- Steven A. Walton, "Provincial Hoplology: Collecting arms and armour in Ontario, 1850-1950," Journal of the History of Collections 19.1 (2007):89-114; doi:10.1093/jhc/fhm004
- Steven A. Walton (ed.), Wind & Water in the Middle Ages: Fluid Technologies from Antiquity to the Renaissance, Penn State Medieval Series, 18 (Tempe, AZ: ACMRS, 2006), 322pp. ISBN-10: 0-86698-367-8, $55/£30.
- Steven A. Walton (ed.), Instrumental in War: Science, Research, and Instruments Between Knowledge and the World, History of Warfare, 28 (Leiden: Brill, 2005), xxiv+416 pp., €129/US$174. ISBN 90 04 14281 9
- Robert Bork, et al. (eds.), De Re Metallica: The Uses of Metal in the Middle Ages, AVISTA Studies in the History of Medieval Technology, Science and Art, 4 (Ashgate, 2005), 442pp., $99.95/£55.00. ISBN: 0 7546 5048 0
Thesis: "The Art of Gunnery in Renaissance England" [downloadable PDF through this link]