In-person and virtual; Zoom link forthcoming.
On Writing a Long-Range, Historical Synthesis: Technology in Mediterranean and European Lands, 600-1600
This talk is a retrospective look at the process of writing a thousand-year history of technology— a project that I have just completed. I discuss why such a thing might be attempted in the first place. I describe the aims of the work, including that of giving as much emphasis to the eastern Mediterranean and North Africa as to Europe, and the issue of writing a regional history within a global context. I discuss problems and interesting discoveries in each of the subject chapters— food production, hydraulic technologies; building construction; urbanism and urban water supply; transportation and communication; crafts and industries; and instruments and machines including weapons. I then discuss some of the major themes of the work, including the historiographies that I try to elucidate. I suggest my own (and others’) revision of those historiographies—including the idea of technological revolution, of technological “progress,” the traditional focus on origins and invention, and the (very common) assumption of the superiority of European technologies.
