Technique and Control

Jacques Ellul was a prolific writer and brilliant sociologist whose work on technological society and propaganda remains relevant today, despite coming from a distinctly French, postwar perspective. Technique and Control re-introduces Ellul’s main body of work to social scientists and readers curious about technology and social life. Frank W. Elwell has updated and supplemented Ellul’s examples of lifeworld domination through physical technology, organization, and an underlying mindset of technique that prioritizes efficient goal-oriented behaviors guided by experience, empiricism, calculability, predictability, and logic. Particular attention is given to the development of human techniques of control such as education, propaganda, and other modes of socialization. By re-invigorating these writings for contemporary readers, Elwell illuminates an important body of sociological work for a new generation of social scientists, students, and those interested in modern society and its continuing evolution.