The relationship between culture and technology is complex and multilayered. Technological innovations that had profound effects on culture are easy to find: Think of the printing press and the automobile.
Seeing how things work in the opposite direction is more difficult, if only because culture is such an all-encompassing and diffuse notion. After all, technology itself can be regarded as a part of culture. What, then, is cause and what effect?
We must investigate the interaction of technology and culture if we want to advance our understanding of the development and economic performance of nations.