There's an excellent book by Raymond Williams called Keywords. It dates back a number of years, but still is useful...he shows that the words "culture" and "civilization" have been trading places for centuries in Western thought. Very helpful. His section on culture is just a few pages long, but captures the essence of the way that the word has many meanings.

Ben Orlove

Hello there, I am an anthropologist, this is my homepage and I'm also Jacob Orlove's dad. Anthropologists disagree on what culture is...one area where there is much interesting debate these days is about whether chimpanzees have culture. Most people say they do...if  chimps in one group have their particular way of greeting each other and in another group they use a different way (say, in one group they clasp hands over their heads, and in another they tap each other), then that seems like culture, a simple form but culture nonetheless.

For culture and technology, there is a completely fascinating debate about how culture has shaped the development of technology. Take clocks...the medieval Chinese were in many ways more advanced than Europe, but their timepieces were glorifed egg-timers, sundials etc., while Europe--with smaller cities, no paper, no gunpowder etc. got started on a different path of clock-making that led to accurate clocks, way before factories, trains, or anything else you'd think you'd need a clock for. Some of that came from the obsession that medieval monks had to pray at the right time of day.

And people in different cultures use the same technology different. Right now there are anthropologists who study cell phone use, which is pretty different from country to country (the US is way behind Europe and East Asia in that regard).

anyway, a good topic. enjoy.

Ben