Influence and intercultural exchange: Engineers, engineering schools and engineering works in the nineteenth century

This article explores the meaning of influence within intercultural exchange, the process through which technologies are developed. Civil engineers, textbooks, educational institutions, and notions of national stereotypes are discussed in reference to the lattice bridge in France and the United States during the nineteenth century. It is suggested that our current state of knowledge regarding the history of civil engineering, as well as its relation to the construction of national identities, makes the detection of influence a delicate endeavor.