Medieval technology and social change
by Lynn Townsend White · first published 1962
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Lynn White's classic study, "Medieval technology and social change", looks at three broad innovations: the stirrup, which led to mounted knights as shock troops and the feudal reorganization of society to support them; the agricultural revolution driven by iron horse-drawn…
on “Prices and wages in Medieval England (2014)” ↗…Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age by Michael S. Malone -The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World by Simon Winchester -The Innovators by Walter Isaacson -Medieval Technology and Social Change by Lynn White Jr. -The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation by Jon Gertner -Electricity in the 17th and 18th Centuries: A Study of Early Modern Physics by Eric H. Chaney…
on “Ask HN: Good Books on the History of Technology?” ↗…looking at Islamic, Indian, and Asian data. And then there's radiometric dating and dendrochronology, which are chaotic in their own right, but 300 years? Nah. Weirdly, I was just reading Lynn White's Medieval technology and social change (1966), discussing the introduction of the stirrup and the heavy plow (as opposed to the scratch plow), both of which happened in this period. There's little in the way of good dates, but some very big…
on “Did the early medieval era ever take place?” ↗The author's point about dissemination of information is spot-on. A couple of years ago, I read Medieval Technology and Social Change, by Lynn White (https://www.amazon.com/Medieval-Technology-Social-Change-Whi...) as recommended by PG. Technically a textbook, it was a dry and drab look at the history of various innovations during Midlevel…
on “Free Solo and Economic Growth” ↗