In its review of new books for 2025, the popular science publication N + 1 recommends Lewis Mumford's The Art and Technology to readers. The Russian-language edition was published by Gaidar Institute Press in 2025, translated by Viktor Zatsepin.
The authors of the review present the book as a long-awaited event for the Russian-speaking audience—the classic work of the philosopher of technology and urbanism was written 73 years ago, but its ideas sound surprisingly relevant today.
As the publication notes, in his book, L. Mumford argues that technology and art were originally “in a state of effective unity.” However, with the beginning of the Enlightenment, “all this seemed to go mad”: man began to model himself after the image of a machine and found himself “harnessed to their network.” According to the authors of the review, the philosopher believes that today our desires and fantasies are no longer entirely our own, since “without the help of radio and television, they would hardly have enough energy to sustain their existence.”
In his book, written in 1951, Mumford argues that technology and art were originally “in a state of effective unity.” However, with the beginning of the Enlightenment, “everything seemed to go mad”: people began to model themselves on machines and found themselves “harnessed to their network.” According to the philosopher, today our desires and fantasies are no longer entirely our own, since “without the help of radio and television, they would hardly have enough energy to sustain their existence.”
The editors of N + 1 emphasized that in 2025, when “neural networks are almost capable of writing a symphony and creating a masterpiece,” L. Mumford's classic work is particularly interesting to read.
For its readers, N + 1 published an excerpt from the book, which can be found at this link