What do you think?
Rate this book
Technology in World Civilization, revised and expanded edition: A Thousand-Year History
The new edition of a milestone work on the global history of technology.This milestone history of technology, first published in 1990 and now revised and expanded in light of recent research, broke new ground by taking a global view, avoiding the conventional Eurocentric perspective and placing the development of technology squarely in the context of a "world civilization." Case studies include "technological dialogues" between China and West Asia in the eleventh century, medieval African states and the Islamic world, and the United States and Japan post-1950. It examines railway empires through the examples of Russia and Japan and explores current synergies of innovation in energy supply and smartphone technology through African cases.The book uses the term "technological dialogue" to challenges the top-down concept of "technology transfer," showing instead that technologies are typically modified to fit local needs and conditions, often triggering further innovation. The authors trace these encounters and exchanges over a thousand years, examining changes in such technologies as agriculture, firearms, printing, electricity, and railroads. A new chapter brings the narrative into the twenty-first century, discussing technological developments including petrochemicals, aerospace, and digitalization from often unexpected global viewpoints and asking what new kind of industrial revolution is needed to meet the challenges of the Anthropocene.
- GenresHistory
341 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 3, 2021
5 people are currently reading
76 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 17, 2022
Recently I read Mumford’s remarkable book, Technic and Civilisation. I decided that it would be a good idea, since that was written in the 1930s, to see what people have had to say on the topic since. And so I read this. And this was a very interesting book – but I think I will remember Mumford’s book for longer than I will this one.
This had the advantage of including much more on Asia. To be fair, Mumford’s book was written before Joseph Needham had published any of his works on China – so, I guess there was less to really go on. And this book makes it clear – repeatedly – that inventions should be looked at as collaborations, rather than as coming fully formed by a great inventor – a myth Mumford challenges too. But I think I got a better feeling of the sweep of technological advance from Mumford.
That said, I would highly recommend the second-last chapter here, ‘Technologies for health, food and basic needs’. As they say, too often we are presented technological advance as being about engineers providing wholly formed new technologies to the illiterate masses. This is the Ayn Rand vision splendid – a tiny collection of geniuses and the great unwashed. But the process is much more like a dance than a vomiting forth of excellence from the excellent.
One of the things I found particularly interesting was around the development of the steam engine. I think we just assume that the introduction of a technology like this would have been so obviously better than horses or other forms of power at the time, that the thing slowing its introduction would have been our ability to produce enough engines. The real problem was that the first steam engines were remarkably inefficient. So much so that they were mostly built in coal mines, because there was so much coal lying around that you didn’t need to pay for, that you could run these big, inefficient machines in ways that you would never have been able to elsewhere. Anywhere else and it would have been a real strain. This is a book, I guess, of the partly formed, and then the conditions that needed to exist for the partly formed to become increasingly functional.
There is an exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria of Picasso’s works at the moment. I couldn’t help thinking of this book as I was walking around it – something you should do too, if you are in Melbourne, by the way. The exhibition shows all of the influences upon Picasso and how his works related to those of the artists around him. As such, there are more artworks by other people in the exhibition than there are of Picasso - and many of these are the best works in the exhibition. The writers of this book would, I suspect, approve of that exhibition.
This had the advantage of including much more on Asia. To be fair, Mumford’s book was written before Joseph Needham had published any of his works on China – so, I guess there was less to really go on. And this book makes it clear – repeatedly – that inventions should be looked at as collaborations, rather than as coming fully formed by a great inventor – a myth Mumford challenges too. But I think I got a better feeling of the sweep of technological advance from Mumford.
That said, I would highly recommend the second-last chapter here, ‘Technologies for health, food and basic needs’. As they say, too often we are presented technological advance as being about engineers providing wholly formed new technologies to the illiterate masses. This is the Ayn Rand vision splendid – a tiny collection of geniuses and the great unwashed. But the process is much more like a dance than a vomiting forth of excellence from the excellent.
One of the things I found particularly interesting was around the development of the steam engine. I think we just assume that the introduction of a technology like this would have been so obviously better than horses or other forms of power at the time, that the thing slowing its introduction would have been our ability to produce enough engines. The real problem was that the first steam engines were remarkably inefficient. So much so that they were mostly built in coal mines, because there was so much coal lying around that you didn’t need to pay for, that you could run these big, inefficient machines in ways that you would never have been able to elsewhere. Anywhere else and it would have been a real strain. This is a book, I guess, of the partly formed, and then the conditions that needed to exist for the partly formed to become increasingly functional.
There is an exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria of Picasso’s works at the moment. I couldn’t help thinking of this book as I was walking around it – something you should do too, if you are in Melbourne, by the way. The exhibition shows all of the influences upon Picasso and how his works related to those of the artists around him. As such, there are more artworks by other people in the exhibition than there are of Picasso - and many of these are the best works in the exhibition. The writers of this book would, I suspect, approve of that exhibition.
Displaying 1 of 1 review