Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History by David Christian & William H. McNeill

Author:David Christian & William H. McNeill [Christian, David & McNeill, William H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Non-Fiction, Science, 21st Century, v.5, Amazon.com, World History, Retail, History
ISBN: 9780520950672
Amazon: B005T5O9N0
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 2011-09-01T15:00:00+00:00

Rates of Innovation

We have seen that population growth, increasing state power, and increasing commercialization all stimulated innovations and growth in the era of agrarian civilizations. But each of these factors could also inhibit accumulation. This contradictory pattern may help explain some important general features of the era of agrarian civilizations. First, despite the existence of new sources of innovation, long-term rates of population growth were not strikingly different from those of the early agrarian era. The negative impact of overpredatory tributary states and of new disease patterns counterbalanced the more positive influences of population growth, increasing state power, and commercial expansion. Second, throughout this era the rate of innovation was sluggish. There were innovations in many areas, of course, from bureaucratic management, to literacy, to warfare, to communications and metallurgy. Furthermore, increasing commerce ensured that technologies such as bronze- or ironworking or horse riding or chariot warfare would spread widely throughout Afro-Eurasia. Nevertheless, what is striking over the entire 4,000 years is how limited innovations were, particularly in productive technologies—in methods of farming and manufacturing. Finally, it is precisely this pattern of sluggish growth that explains the basic Malthusian rhythm of rise and fall that appears to have been characteristic of all agrarian civilizations. On the whole, in this era of human history, fundamentally new technologies contributed less to accumulation than did the gradual spread of small improvements to already-existing technologies, such as those of the secondary products revolution, which had been pioneered during the early agrarian era.

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