The nature of engineering, and more particularly the ways in which engineers are trained and the kinds of work they do, are matters of vital concern in our society. This concern and many of the policy issues associated with it are examined in a recently completed study organized and conducted by the National Academy of Engineering and the National Research Council.' This study is unusual in that historians of technology played a major part in the investigations of the panel charged with examining the relations between engineering and society. In July 1983, twenty historians of technology met with an equal number of engineers at a three-day conference at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington. The conference was devoted to historical presentations on American engineering and discussion of the relevance of these historical cases to the formation of contemporary policy. I had the pleasure of serving as the organizer of this most stimulating meeting, and I also wrote the account of the proceedings that has been published as part of the project's final report.2 The intense discourse the engineers and historians engaged in during those three days quickly shattered my initial expectations. On the basis of past experience, I anticipated that this attempt to communicate between different specializations would not proceed smoothly. The historians who accepted this invitation to talk with engineers about