If you'd like a slightly more detailed, but still-manageable version of this, I strongly recommend David Christian's Big History. It's the story of history, from the Big Bang to the present. Wikipedia overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_History Book (one of many): https://www.worldcat.org/title/origin-story-a-big-history-of... There was at one time a lecture series running about 30--40 episodes on YouTube, though I don't find that presently. There are still numerous matching hits on YouTube for "Big History" "David Christian", though I've not explored them for matches. Shorter…
I suspect you'll miss this and our commenting window will close soon, but... Thanks for noting points of agreement. That's rare and appreciated. I'm pretty familiar with the energy-lens-of-history model --- see Vaclav Smil (Energy in World History and Energy and Civilization and Manfred Weissenbacher Sources of Power, among others which are ... slipping my mind at the moment). I do agree that it explains much. Energy, in the form of either flows (solar, wind, hydro, geothermal) or stocks (wood, fossil fuels, nuclear fissibles or fuseables) must be accessible and convertible. The ancient…
My point is and remains that when England leapt ahead of Spain, one primary driver was a tremendous increase in availability of primary energy. Coal replaced other scarce fuels, largely wood and charcoal, rare in both Spain and Britain, and steam engines themselves bootstrapped that process. The immediate applications of coal may not have been yet more steam power (that waited for Watt in ~1770 and more especially expiry of his patents in 1800), but it was applied to space heat and cooking, glassmaking, and smelting of various metals, though most especially iron. It also freed up limited…
If that's your misbegotten model of reality, may I suggest some reading material. Technology is dependent on energy, not the other way 'round. Vaclav Smil, Energy in World History http://www.worldcat.org/title/energy-in-world-history/oclc/4... Smil's Energy Transitions addresses switching between primary sources of energy: http://www.worldcat.org/title/energy-transitions-history-req... Manfred Weissenbacher, Sources of Power, in two volumes: http://www.worldcat.org/title/before-oil-the-ages-of-foragin... http://www.worldcat.org/title/oil-age-and-beyond/oclc/837625... Limits to Growth…
My Chinese history ain't so sharp either, but checking, the three dynastic periods you're referencing start about 1115, or some 700 years after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The barbarian invaders in each case are the Mongols, whom I'd mentioned (along with the timeframe) above. So this largely proves my poiont. Whilst yes, there are multiple Chinese dynasties being considered here, there's pretty much a single cultural tradition, as opposed to the equivalent period of Western history which spans Egypt, the Phoenecians (or Phillistines, from which Palistine comes from), Minoans,…
Different areas of technology have profoundly different dynamics and interactions. Much of the 19th century boom drove directly off of coal and what it made possible (steel, electricity, lights, electric motors, locomotives, mang), and toward the end, petroleum and automobiles. Henry Ford's Model T began production in 1901, just after the end of the era, and the Wright Brother's flight was in 1903, enabled by low-weight, high-oputput gasoline engines (we've improved considerably since then). Vaclav Smil's Energy in World History provides a really good illustration of various technolgies…
I very strongly recommend reading literature on the Industrial Revolution(s) generally, and on relating energy and economic growth. There's still a fair bit I've yet to read, but: * Vaclav Smil, Energy in World History (1994). Highly technical, short, dense, but quite readable. Focus is on energy and technology primarily, economics and politics only remotely. * Manfred Weissenbacher, Sources of Power (2009). Also technical, long, rambles, somewhat, and unevenly edited, but still recommended. Draws heavily on Smil as well as numerous other sources, and includes more politics…
The trick isn't necessarily singular. Tainter's argument is actually that what happens is complexity (roughly: technology, though it's a bit more involved than that -- enumerable parts with distinct structures is a good first approximation) increases because it solves problems. The second order problem is that that complexity itself has a cost, and perhaps an accruing technical debt. When you reach the point of not being able to pay those, not only do you lose the complexity incurred but its capabilities -- you're in a worse hole than you started from. On the question of whether there's a…
I'm going to disagree with you on the pace of change. That's what Smil and Weissenbacher both cover in detail. 1800 - 1849 saw: * Watt's patent expire, allowing larger, smaller, higher-pressure, and mobile steam engines. * Steam applied to transport on rail and ships. * Rail still suffered from metalurgical limits. Wrought or cast-iron rails tend to split and shatter. Bessemmer steel came in the 1860s. Build-out of US railroads really only happened in the 2nd half of the 19th century, though England had a pretty extensive system. * Telegraph and kerosene lamps. Note that with the…
There's some truth to that, though I'd push the date back a bit, perhaps to Newton or Kepler, when the logjam of appealing to the authority of the ancients (generally Aristotle) was finally and decisively broken. Vaclav Smil (already mentioned several times in this thread) points to the half-century from 1875--1925 as the peak of invention, and more specifically, the decade of the 1880s. This was the time when discoveries based on electricity, coal-tar chemistry, petroleum, some bits of genetics, and others were coming into the fore. There are very few modern inventions which cannot be…