Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Preface 2012
Preface to the First Edition
Introduction: A Strange Sort of Warfare
1. Revising the Revolution, 1815–1861
2. Building a Ship, Speaking Success
3. William Keeler's Epistolary Monitor
4. Life in the Artificial World
5. The Battle of Hampton Roads
6. Iron Ship in a Glass Case, April–September 1862
7. Utilitarians View the Monitor's Fight, 1862–1865
8. Melville and the Mechanic's War
Conclusion: Mechanical Faces of Battle
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography Essay
Index

About the Author

David A. Mindell is Dibner Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing and Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is author or editor of several books, including Digital Apollo: Human and Machine in Spaceflight and Between Human and Machine: Feedback, Control, and Computing before Cybernetics, the latter published by Johns Hopkins. The first edition of Iron Coffin, titled War, Technology, and Experience aboard the USS Monitor, won the Sally Hacker Prize from the Society for the History of Technology in 2001.

Reviews

Mindell takes us back in time so we become 'witnesses' to the events surrounding the Union Navy's most famous ironclad. Pirates and Privateers The excellence of this volume confirms its continuing usefulness... Iron Coffin is a veritable gem of a book. -- John F.M. McDermott IEEE Technology and Society Magazine Mindell's research is impeccable and supports his argument with considerable authority from contemporary sources as well as his own experiences after the partial recovery of the Monitor's components. The book, as with its earlier incarnation, is an important bridge between operational military history and the human side to science and technology. -- Gregory Stern H-War, H-Net Reviews Midell conveys life aboard the Monitor with realism and honesty. -- Robert C. Stewart Industrial Archaeology