Book contents
- The Cambridge World History
- The Cambridge World History
- The Cambridge World History
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Table
- Contributors
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- Part I Global developments
- Part II Eurasian commonalities
- Part III Growing interactions
- 9 Trade and commerce across Afro-Eurasia
- 10 European and Mediterranean trade networks
- 11 Trading partners across the Indian Ocean: the making of maritime communities
- 12 Technology and innovation within expanding webs of exchange
- 13 The transmission of science and philosophy
- 14 Pastoral nomadic migrations and conquests
- Part IV Expanding religious systems
- Part V State formations
- Index
- References
12 - Technology and innovation within expanding webs of exchange
from Part III - Growing interactions
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 May 2015
Book contents
- The Cambridge World History
- The Cambridge World History
- The Cambridge World History
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Table
- Contributors
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- Part I Global developments
- Part II Eurasian commonalities
- Part III Growing interactions
- 9 Trade and commerce across Afro-Eurasia
- 10 European and Mediterranean trade networks
- 11 Trading partners across the Indian Ocean: the making of maritime communities
- 12 Technology and innovation within expanding webs of exchange
- 13 The transmission of science and philosophy
- 14 Pastoral nomadic migrations and conquests
- Part IV Expanding religious systems
- Part V State formations
- Index
- References
Summary
This chapter addresses some major issues and methodological concerns emerging from the socio-historical view of technology and innovation. It discusses constitutive factors of cultural frameworks of innovation evident on the global stage, transmission processes, and the relation between ruling powers and technology. Historical studies of technologies, exchange, and innovation in the Middle Millennium have largely focused on the Eurasian continent, where empires, cultures, and individuals created oscillating spheres of influence and varying contact zones. In general, scribal cultures discuss technical abilities as part of evaluations of human work or artisanal expertise in comparison with various forms of scholarship. For a long time, historians of technology equated transmission processes with the rise of European power at the end of the sixteenth century. Changes in environmental circumstances or human migration into areas that required different equipment were at least as important as political and institutional frameworks in stimulating technological innovation.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge World History , pp. 309 - 338Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2015
References
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