Da Vinci Medal Address: A Centrifugal Maelstrom?

This revision of the da Vinci Medal Address, delivered at SHOT's annual meeting in Los Angeles on October 28, 2023, presents two valedictories. The first reviews fifty years in SHOT studying and teaching the history of technology and warfare. It argues that not only is technology a particularly useful category of analysis for understanding change in warfare over the course of human history, but warfare is an equally useful category of analysis for studying technological change. The second valedictory invites SHOT members to clarify what they mean by the term "technology." There is no need for a single definition, but the term is so widely and loosely used in contemporary discourse that it behooves SHOT members to explain what they mean by it.