ABSTRACT
Industrial society theory has been largely successful in limiting our thought on the relationship between technology and society. In the traditional social science literature it has often been assumed that the stress on the importance of technology results in a form of technological determinism similar to that found in post-war theories of industrial society. Industrial society theory has in general discouraged a much needed display of 'sociological imagination' in the study of technological choice and development. The past value of and justification for the theory was founded upon the determining role and moral value attributed to industrial development. The more recent 'critical' theories of industrial society accept that industrial advance cannot be equated with social progress. A number of empirical and theoretical critiques have also been made of the exaggerated importance attached to industry and industrial development as an explanation of structure and change in modern societies.
