The Genesis of ‘Useful Knowledge’

Cited in Mokyr Joel , The gifts of Athena: Historical origins of the knowledge economy (Princeton and Oxford, 2002), 36.

See the AHR review essays: “Explaining European dominance”, American historical review, civ (1999), 1240–57, essays by Mokyr, Guy and Tilly on David Landes, Wealth and poverty of nations: Why some are so rich and some so poor; Clunas Craig , review essay “Modernity global and local: Consumption and the rise of the west”, American historical review, civ (1999), 1999–1511, essays on John Brewer and Roy Porter, Consumption and the world of goods (London, 1993), Brewer John Staves Susan , Early modern conceptions of property (London, 1995), and Bermingham Ann Brewer John , The consumption of culture (London, 1995); “AHR Forum: Asia and Europe in the world economy”, American historical review, cvii (2002), essays by Manning, Pomeranz, Bin Wong and Ludden.

Mokyr Joel , “Accounting for the industrial revolution”, in Floud Roderick Johnson Paul (eds), The Cambridge economic history of modern Britain (Cambridge, 2004), i, 1–27; Mokyr Joel , “Intellectual origins of modern economic growth”, Journal of economic history, lxv (2005), 2005–351.

Workshop on “Useful knowledge and technological practice”, University of Warwick Centre in London, 4 July 2003. Other comments were provided by Ulrich Pfister, Anne Puetz, Nigel Thrift, Luca Molà, Luisa Dolza, Eric Jones, Christine MacLeod, Anna Guagnini, Robert Fox, Patric Bret, Nick Von Tunzelmann, Yves Cohen and Robert Allen.

Mokyr , “Intellectual origins” (ref. 3), 309.

Mokyr , The gifts of Athena (ref. 1), 4–17, p. 5.

Ibid., 6–7.

Mokyr , The gifts of Athena (ref. 1), 276–8.

Mokyr , “Intellectual origins” (ref. 3), 301–6.

Ibid., 297, 318–21.

Jacob Margaret , Scientific culture and the making of the industrial West (New York, 1997); Jacob Margaret , “The cultural foundations of early industrialization: A project”, in Berg Maxine Bruland Kristine (eds), Technological revolutions in Europe: Historical perspectives (Cheltenham, U.K., and Northampton, MA, 1998), 67–85.

See this issue, Stewart Larry , “Experimental spaces and the knowledge economy”, 157–79, pp. 158–9, 165.

Jacob , Scientific culture (ref. 11).

Landes David , The unbound Prometheus (Cambridge, 1969); Allen Robert , “Summing up: Agriculture and useful knowledge”, Warwick—CNAM Workshop on useful knowledge and technological practice, 4 June 2003.

See the classic account in Arrow Kenneth , “The economic implications of learning by doing”, Review of economic studies, xxix (1962), 155–73. See the implications of this for economic history elaborated in Rosenberg Nathan , Perspectives on technology (Cambridge, 1976).

Mokyr Joel , The lever of riches: Technological creativity and economic progress (New York and Oxford, 1990), esp. pp. 292–8.

Harris J. R. , Industrial espionage and technology transfer (Aldershot, 1998), 219–21.

Hilaire-Pérez Liliane , “Technology as a public culture in the eighteenth century: The artisans' legacy”, this issue, 137–55, p. 154.

Epstein S. R. , “Craft guilds, apprenticeship and technological change in preindustrial Europe”, Journal of economic history, liii (1998), 684–713; Epstein S. R. , “Transferring technical knowledge and innovating in Europe, c. 1200–1800”, Working Paper on ”The nature of evidence: How well do ‘facts’ travel?”, 1 May 2005, London School of Economics web site, 7.

Epstein , “Transferring technical knowledge” (ref. 19), 3.

Molà Luca , “Minorities and technical change in early modern Italy”, unpublished paper to the Warwick—CNAM Research Interchange conference on Minorities in Europe, Paris, June 2004.

Luu Lien Bich , Immigrants and the industries of London 1500–1700 (Aldershot, 2005).

Hilaire-Pérez Liliane , “Cultures techniques et pratiques de l'échange, entre Lyon et le Levant: Inventions et réseaux au XVIIIe siècle”, Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine, xlix (2002), 105–8; Raveux Olivier , “Espaces et technologies dans la France méridionale d'ancien regime: L'example de l'indiennage marseillais (1648–1793)”, Annales du Midi, no. 246 (2004), 155–70.

Gar&çon A.-F. Hilaire-Pérez L. , “Open technique’ between community and individuality in eighteenth-century France”, in de Goey F. Veluwenkamp J. W. (eds), Entrepreneurs and institutions in Europe and Asia, 1500–2000 (Amsterdam, 2002), 237–56; Riello Giorgio , “The rise of European calico printing and dyeing and the influence of Asia in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries”, unpublished paper presented to Gehn conference on Textiles, Pune, India, 2005.

Rydén Göran Evans Chris , “Kinship and the transmission of skills: Bar iron production in Britain and Sweden 1500–1860”, in Berg Bruland (eds), Technological revolutions in Europe (ref. 11), 188–206; Bruland Kristine (ed.), Technology transfer and Scandinavian industrialisation (New York and Oxford, 1991); and Harris J. R. , Industrial espionage and technology transfer: Britain and France in the eighteenth century (Aldershot, 1998), 199, 441.

For an earlier discussion of these shifting poles of technological creativity across Europe see Davids K. A. , “Shifts of technological leadership in early modern Europe”, in Lucassen J. Davids K. (eds), A miracle mirrored: The Dutch Republic in European perspective (Cambridge, 1995), 338–66.

Epstein , “Transferring technical knowledge” (ref. 19), 31.

Hilaire-Pérez , “Technology as a public culture” (ref. 18), 15; Harris , Industrial espionage (ref. 25), 451.

Berg Maxine , “In pursuit of luxury: Global origins of British consumer goods in the eighteenth century”, Past and present, no. 182 (2004), 85–142, pp. 125–30.

Epstein , “Transferring technical knowledge” (ref. 19), 28.

These issues were discussed in the Global Economic History Network conference on Useful and Reliable Knowledge, Leiden, September, 2004. See especially papers by William Gervase Clarence-Smith, “Science and technology in early modern Islam, c. 1450-c. 1850”; Wong Bin Roy , “Useful knowledge and economic change: What are we explaining?”; and Cohen Floris , “The coming-into-being of our modern world: What science and technology had to do with it”. These papers can be accessed at: www.lse.ac.uk/collections/economicHistory/GEHN/GEHNConferences4Papers.htm.

Bruland Kristine , “Technology selection and useful knowledge: A comment”, this issue, 181–5, pp. 182–3; Wong , “Useful knowledge” (ref. 31), 9. On modular knowledge see Ledderose Lothar , Ten thousand things: Module and mass production in Chinese art (Princeton, 2000).

Mokyr , “Intellectual origins” (ref. 3), 326.