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‘ Technology’ is considered one of the keywords of our world , yet it is also one of the confused. As an analytical category it seems essential for our understanding of all of humanity’s historical past, and certainly beyond. We are in all probability comfy with asserting that humans have had technologies because the Palaeolithic, and a menagerie of animals, from crows to chimps, have even been recognized as tool users. As an actors’ category ‘technology’ is of surprisingly current vintage, though cognate terms – techne, arts, and so on – have a for much longer historical past. Yet even for a latest English word ‘technology’ has come to embrace usually conflicting meanings. First, I will supply a summary of Eric Schatzberg’s necessary new opus Technology, which untangles and clarifies the history of ‘technology’ and its cognates as actors’ categories. So ‘technology’ entered the twentieth century because the science of the commercial arts, a time period of artwork for the German cam