Massimo Guarnieri Author

Massimo Guarnieri was born near Venice, Italy, in 1955. He received the Laurea (Hons.) in Electrical Engineering from the University of Padua in 1979, the Diploma in Plasma and Thermonuclear Fusion Research in 1982, an MBA from CUOA Business School in 1985, and a Ph.D. in Electrical Science from the University of Rome in 1987. He joined the Italian National Research Council in 1982 and the University of Padua in 1983, where he has served as Full Professor of Electrical Engineering since 2000. During his academic career, his research initially focused on electromagnetic systems for magnetic-confinement fusion experiments and later expanded to electrochemical energy-storage and energy-conversion technologies, including hydrogen systems, fuel cells, flow batteries, and lithium-ion batteries. For more than three decades, Professor Guarnieri has also been actively engaged in the history of technology and engineering. For twenty-five years, he taught History of Technology in engineering programs at the University of Padua, introducing generations of students to the historical development of technological innovation and its impact on society. He currently chairs the History Activity Committee of the IEEE Italy Section and has authored more than fifty scholarly articles on the history of technology published in peer-reviewed international journals, including numerous publications issued by IEEE. He has presented his research at many international conferences on the history of technology and served as Co-Chair of HISTELCON 2023, the IEEE Conference on the History of Electrotechnology, held in Florence. Professor Guarnieri is the author of several books on the history of technology. The present volume is the revised English edition of Da Habilis a Jobs – Due milioni di anni con la tecnologia (Esculapio, Bologna, 2019), a comprehensive work of more than one thousand pages tracing the evolution of technology from prehistoric toolmaking to the digital age. Combining the perspectives of engineer, researcher, educator, and historian of technology, Professor Guarnieri explores the complex interactions among technological innovation, scientific knowledge, economic development, and social change throughout human history.