1. Methodology
1.1 Technology as the metric of progress.
1.2 Some basic concepts: Popper, Kuhn and Lakatos: “is the history of technology a cumulative process?”; invention and innovation; creativity and social construction of technology; the “Kranzberg Laws”.

2. Topics on History of Technology

2.1 Operational technology: pre-classical and classical civilisations. Technology as means of solving practical problems; technology as amusement and hobby; technology as a political structure.
2.2 Technical practice and change in medieval society: agriculture, energy and architecture.
2.3 Renaissance: understanding nature in order to control it. Technologies of the court. Leonardo da Vinci: war and flight; Francis Bacon and his technical agenda; Galileo: machines and efficiency. Perspective and press as a means of spreading technical knowledge.
2.4 The age of mechanism: technical development in the 17th century. In the threshold of industrial age: energy and manufacturing.
2.5 The age of industry: Industrial Revolution and civilisation: energy, machinery, materials and communication.
2.6 Consolidation of an industrial culture. The World Exibitions. The engineer as an industrial expert. New patterns of space and time.
2.7 The triumph of technology; mass production, expertise and globalisation. Technical systems and research in the 20th century: big science and big technology; oriented research projects; socialcontrol of technology: the "HAL syndrome and the Moore's Law.

3. The Portuguese Case: the anatomy of a profession. The teaching of engineering. Engineering and Portuguese modernity.