Technology in World Civilization: A Thousand-Year History

Most general histories of technology are Eurocentrist, focusing on a main line of Western technology that stretches from the Greeks is through the computer. In this very different book, Arnold Pacey takes a global view, placing the development of technology squarely in a "world civilization." He portrays the process as a complex dialectic by which inventions borrowed from one culture are adopted to suit another.Arnold Pacey is a physicist turned historian whose publications have contributed to the British appropriate-technology movement. He has written widely on science,technology, and agriculture. His previous books include The Maze of Ingenuity and The Culture of Technology.

In this very different book, Arnold Pacey takes a global view, placing the development of technology squarely in a "world civilization."

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Departing from the usual eurocentrist approach, Pacey takes a global view, and demonstrates that western technology is an amalgam of cross- fertilizations from the great civilizations of China, India, and Islam and from the apparently primitive cultures of peasant farmers in Africa or Inuit hunters in the Arctic. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Arnold Pacey is an Associate Lecturer at the Open University, Britain. He is the author of The Culture of Technology (MIT Press, 1983), Technology and World Civilization (MIT Press, 1991), and The Maze of Ingenuity, second edition (MIT Press, 1992).