CCR’s treatment of technology has been both historical and forward-looking. Norman C. Rothman’s “Technology in Eurasia Before Modern Times: A Survey” in v75 is the most comprehensive historical treatment in the corpus, surveying technological systems across the Eurasian landmass from prehistory to the early modern period.

Toby Huff’s “Civilizational Analysis and Paths Not Taken, Part II” in v76 includes a substantial section on the technology of the Islamic and Chinese encounters with the West, including the architecture of the information wave (2000) and the dynamics of the virtual civilization in the 21st century.

“Beyond Eurasia: Technology in Africa, the Americas, and Oceania in pre-Modern Times” in v76 extends the survey to the other continents, examining the distinctive technological systems of sub-Saharan Africa (iron working, Bantu agriculture), pre-Columbian America (Inca, Maya, Aztec metallurgy, stone-working, hydraulic engineering), and Oceania (Polynesian navigation, double-hulled voyaging canoes).

Ian McGilchrist’s The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World (Yale University Press, 2009) is reviewed in v76, advancing the thesis that the divided brain (left hemisphere attention to detail vs. right hemisphere attention to context) explains the trajectory of Western civilization.

Source summaries:

  • v75 (Fall 2016) — Norman C. Rothman, “Technology in Eurasia Before Modern Times: A Survey.” (v75)
  • v76 (Spring 2017) — “Beyond Eurasia: Technology in Africa, the Americas, and Oceania in pre-Modern Times”; review of Ian McGilchrist’s The Master and His Emissary. (v76)