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
Further reading
Adas, Michael. Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Astill, Grenville and Langdon, John, eds. Medieval Farming and Technology: The Impact of Agricultural Change in Northwest Europe. Technology and Change in History, vol. i. Leiden: Brill, 1997.Google Scholar
Benn, Charles D. Daily Life in Traditional China: The Tang Dynasty. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Bray, Francesca. Technology and Gender: Fabrics of Power in Late Imperial China. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Bray, Francesca, Dorofeeva-Lichtmann, Vera and Métailié, Georges, eds. Graphics and Text in the Production of Technical Knowledge in China: The Warp and the Weft. Leiden: Brill, 2007.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burke, Edmund III. ‘Islam at the Center: Technological Complexes and the Roots of Modernity’, Journal of World History 20,2 (2009): 165–86.Google Scholar
Chaudhuri, K. N. Asia before Europe: Economy and Civilisation of the Indian Ocean from the Rise of Islam to 1750. Cambridge University Press, 1990.Google Scholar
De Vries, Kelly. Guns and Men in Medieval Europe, 1200–1500. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002.Google Scholar
Jiren, Feng. Chinese Architecture and Metaphor: Song Culture in the Yingzao Fashi Building Manual. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai'i Press, 2012.Google Scholar
Gernet, Jacques. Buddhism in Chinese Society: An Economic History from the Fifth to the Tenth Centuries, trans. Verellen, Franciscus. New York, NY: Columbia Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Gies, Frances and Gies, Joseph. Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel: Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages. New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1994.Google Scholar
Glick, Thomas, Livesey, Steven J. and Wallis, Faith. Medieval Science, Technology and Medicine: An Encyclopedia. New York and London: Routledge, 2005.Google Scholar
Qi, Han, Xiumin, Zhang. Zhongguo yinshua shi, 2 vols. Hangzhou: Zhejiang guji chubanshe, 2006. Translated into English by Jiehua, Chen et al. The History of Chinese Printing. Paramus: Homa & Sekey, 2009.Google Scholar
Hill, Donald. Medieval Islamic Technology: From Philo to Al-Jazari – From Alexandria to Diyar Bakr. Collected Studies Series, 555. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998.Google Scholar
Khan, Iqtidar Alam. Gunpowder and Firearms: Warfare in Medieval India. Oxford University Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Lucas, Adam. Wind, Water, Work: Ancient and Medieval Milling Technology. Leiden: Brill, 2006.Google Scholar
Ledderose, Lothar. Ten Thousand Things: Module and Mass Production in Chinese Art. Princeton University Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Long, Pamela O. Technology and Society in the Medieval Centuries: Byzantium, Islam, and the West, 500–1300. Washington DC: American Historical Association; Society for the History of Technology, 2003.Google Scholar
Needham, Joseph. Heavenly Clockwork: The Great Astronomical Clocks of Medieval China. Cambridge: Published in association with the Antiquarian Horological Society at the University Press, 1960.Google Scholar
Pacey, Arnold. Technology in World Civilization: A Thousand-Year History. Boston: The MIT Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Rahman, Abdhur. History of Indian Science, Technology and Culture CE 1000–1800. Oxford University Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Schäfer, Dagmar, ed. Cultures of Knowledge: Technology in Chinese History. Leiden: Brill, 2012.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmidt, P. R. Iron Technology in East Africa: Symbolism, Science, and Archaeology. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Siebert, Martina. Pulu: Abhandlungen und Auflistungen: zu materieller Kultur und Naturkunde im traditionellen China. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2006.Google Scholar
Sivin, Nathan. Granting the Season: The Chinese Astronomical Reform of 1280. With a Study of its Many Dimensions and an Annotated Translation of its Records. Sources and Studies in the History of Mathematics and Physical Science. New York, NY: Springer, 2009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
- 2
- Cited by