This special edition focuses on morality, locality and 'standardization' in the work of British consulting electrical engineers, 1880-1914. The technical problems confronting different societies and periods and the measures taken to solve them form the concern of this annual collection of essays. It deals with the history of technical discovery and change and explores the relationship of technology to other aspects of life - social, cultural and economic - and shows how technological development has shaped, and been shaped by, the society in which it occurred.