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technology, history of
Innovation
The word innovation raises a problem of great importance in the
history of technology. Strictly, an innovation is something
entirely new, but there is no such thing as an unprecedented technological
innovation because it is impossible for an inventor to work in a
vacuum and, however ingenious his invention, it must arise out of his own
previous experience. The task of distinguishing an element of novelty in
an invention remains a problem of patent law down to the present day, but
the problem is made relatively easy by the possession of full documentary
records covering previous inventions in many countries. For the millennium
of the Middle Ages, however, few such records exist, and it is frequently
difficult to explain how particular innovations were introduced to
western Europe. The problem is especially perplexing because it is known
that many inventions of the period had been developed independently and
previously in other civilizations, and it is sometimes difficult if not
impossible to know whether something is spontaneous innovation or
an invention that had been transmitted by some as yet undiscovered route
from those who had originated it in other societies.
The problem is important because it generates a
conflict of interpretations about the transmission of technology. On the
one hand there is the theory of the diffusionists, according to which all
innovation has moved westward from the long-established
civilizations of the ancient world, with Egypt and Mesopotamia as the two
favourite candidates for the ultimate source of the process. On the other
hand is the theory of spontaneous innovation, according to which
the primary determinant of technological innovation is social need.
Scholarship is as yet unable to solve the problem so far as technological
advances of the Middle Ages are concerned because much information is
missing. But it does seem likely that at least some of the key inventions
of the period--the windmill and gunpowder are good examples--were
developed spontaneously. It is quite certain, however, that others, such
as silk working, were transmitted to the West, and, however original the
contribution of Western civilization to technological innovation,
there can be no doubt at all that in its early centuries at least it
looked to the East for ideas and inspiration. (See gunpowder.)
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technology, history of
- Introduction
- General considerations
- Technology in the ancient world
- From the Middle Ages to 1750
- The Industrial Revolution (1750-1900)
- The 20th century
- Perceptions of technology
- Bibliography
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