Books about advanced technology + primitive society

[Orsony]

Howdy,

Can anyone point me in the direction of a book about advanced technology in a primitive society, and the effects it would have.
Think a rifle + a manual in the middle ages.

Also any books on the effect of modern technology on society. I'm trying to write my own story and i need a better understanding of the antagonist i want to write about.

The gist is that people from a relatively swords, bows, arrows, monarchy type of place, start digging up artifacts all around the world, and start learning of all this old technology that surpasses their own. They start to weave it into their own society, barely understanding most of it, and it starts to have a negative effect, that the protagonist strives to defeat.

Any direction would be well appreciated.
Cheers!

[kiki1982]

No book, I'm afraid, but have you seen the start of The Gods must be Crazy? For a comedic view of how a Coca Cola bottle finds its way into a tribe of bushmen and is eventually discarded because it provokes discord in the family, that is certainly interesting. Maybe you can do something with it.

Otherwise you have watched a pretty classic British comedy.

Adorable, the end and hilarious in the middle...

[Des Essientes]

I recommend Ursula Leguin's novel "The Telling" which tells the story of resistance on a world in which traditional ways of life have been outlawed by a government intent on a disasterous program of technological modernization. It is a profoundly Taoist book and not at all unlike your planned story.

[hanzklein]

You might like a little book called "War and Peace in the Global Village" by McLuhan. The book is inspired by the novel Finnegans Wake and the theories of philosopher Vico. Here's an excerpt about what the book is about:


War and Peace in The Global Village is a collage of images and text that sharply illustrates the effects of electronic media and new technology on man.
Marshall McLuhan wrote this book thirty years ago and following its publication predicted that the forthcoming information age would be "a transitional era of profound pain and tragic identity quest". Marshall McLuhan illustrates the fact that all social changes are caused by introduction of new technologies. He interprets these new technologies as extensions or "self-amputations of our own being", because technologies extend bodily reach. McLuhan's ideas and observations seem disturbingly accurate and clearly applicable to the world in which we live.

War and Peace in the Global Village is a meditation on accelerating innovations leading to identity loss and war.

[Orsony]

Thanks so much! I'll have a look at them all, and will most likely buy the books.

I appreciate the help : )

Thanks again

[Silas Thorne]

A really good one is 'A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court' by Mark Twain.

[togre]

H. Beam Piper's Lord Kelvin of Otherwhen series. He wrote 1 and 1/2 of them and the series was completed by so other dudes. The premise is a multi-dimensional universe where there is one 'verse that can travel between them and exploit the material resources of less developed ones. This is explored somewhat in his short-stories. The Lord Kelvin series is when a police officer from our universe is accidentally transported to a less developed on (inefficient gunpowder tech) and tries to help a local king surrounded by overwhelming foes survive.

David Webber in the Safehold series has a cyborg (not exactly) trying to help a kingdom with a similar tech level to survive through advances. Four awesome books thus far, one more this September.

I'd also recommend his stand alone book Apocalypse Troll where a malevolent high tech invader crash lands and tries to destroy the world.

He also wrote a series with John Ringo (I believe) about a city transported from modern day into 30 Years War era Germany. I haven't read it yet. I have read Island in the Sea of Time by SM Stirling where the island of Nantucket is transported to 5th century BC. Read and enjoyed some of the series but left off because of ideological differences with the author.

[Orsony]

Thanks again! About to head the book shop and place some orders.
Hopefully these books give me a general idea of how the change would happen, if given time.

[libernaut]

I dunno if it's what you are looking for exactly, but this book has a lot to say about technology: Technopoly by Neil Postman