Science and Technology in World History: An Introduction

Front Cover
JHU Press, 2006 M06 20 - 496 pages

Now in its second edition, this bestselling textbook may be the single most influential study of the historical relationship between science and technology ever published. Tracing this relationship from the dawn of civilization through the twentieth century, James E. McClellan III and Harold Dorn argue that technology as "applied science" emerged relatively recently, as industry and governments began funding scientific research that would lead directly to new or improved technologies.

McClellan and Dorn identify two great scientific traditions: the useful sciences, patronized by the state from the dawn of civilization, and scientific theorizing, initiated by the ancient Greeks. They find that scientific traditions took root in China, India, and Central and South America, as well as in a series of Near Eastern empires, during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. From this comparative perspective, the authors explore the emergence of Europe and the United States as a scientific and technological power.

The new edition reorganizes its treatment of Greek science and significantly expands its coverage of industrial civilization and contemporary science and technology with new and revised chapters devoted to applied science, the sociology and economics of science, globalization, and the technological systems that underpin everyday life.

 

Contents

The Guiding Themes
1
From Ape to Alexander
3
Humankind Emerges Tools and Toolmakers
5
The Reign of the Farmer
17
Pharaohs and Engineers
31
Greeks Bearing Gifts
55
Alexandria and After
79
Thinking and Doing among the Worlds Peoples
97
The Crime and Punishment of Galileo Galilei
223
God said Let Newton be
249
Science and Industrial Civilization
275
Timber Coal Cloth and Steam
279
Legacies of Revolution
295
Life Itself
323
Toolmakers Take Command
339
The New Aristotelians
365

The Enduring East
99
The Middle Kingdom
117
Indus Ganges and Beyond
141
The New World
155
Europe and the Solar System
175
Plows Stirrups Guns and Plagues
177
Copernicus Incites a Revolution
203
The Bomb and the Genome
391
Under Todays Pharaohs
415
The Medium of History
437
Guide to Resources
441
Illustration Credits
463
Index
465
Copyright

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About the author (2006)

James E. McClellan III is professor of the history of science and Harold Dorn is professor emeritus of the history of science and technology at the Stevens Institute of Technology.

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