Innovation and Technology in Europe

This book offers a re-appraisal of the origins and nature of technological change, a subject which as long been at the heart of debates over industrialization and economic growth. How and why does technological change occur? What are the conditions that favour first the development and then the application of the new technologies? Why has successful innovation occurred in certain places and at certain times, but not in others? Is innovation a conscious, deliberate, planned and cumulative process, or is it accidental and discontinuous? What is the relationship between technology and economic growth, and between technological change and the social and political context in which it takes place? These are the questions addressed. A distinguished team of international contributors focus here on technological change in Europe, drawing upon the experiences of several countries, including England, France, Italy and Germany. The book's opening chapter provides an overview of the main causes of technological advance in Western Europe before 1870.
The authors show how many of the previous accepted interpretations and commonplaces are no longer credible and that none of the single cause explanations of inventiveness and technological innovation survive scrutiny.