A culture of improvement: Techlology and the western millenium - Book Report/Review Example

Robert Friedel has provided an excellent book to explain the changes which have been witnessed in Western technology since the middle Ages. The author has presented the text with new illustrations, diagrams and drawings to present a better understanding of the technologies. Instead of merely lauding the likes of Brunelleschi, Watt, Wedgewood, and Edison, however, Friedel uses them to illustrate broader developments which resulted from them. There are two main explanations put forward by Friedel in this text.

Firstly, over the last thousand years there has been an evolution of a ‘culture of improvement’ in the West where greater focus is put on the improvements of technology and its sustainability. The other thesis put forward by the author is that there has been an exponential increase in technology due to more research and more requirements of the people. According to Friedel there has been a culture of improvement or in other words move towards Progress over the last few centuries. What is commendable about Friedel is that he avoids the question or discussion over the point whether this progress is favorable for the masses or not.

He merely explains the speed with which the improvement is taking place. He appreciates the gradual speed with which the technology is evolving and the revolutionary speed which marks a breakthrough in the history of mankind. Friedel also explains that the culture of improvement also has another virtue which is the perspective of the people to various technological changes. Some are focused upon will others may not seem as useful a change. For example, the usage of water power for grinding was discovered in the first century BC where the water wheel was used.

However, this advancement laid forgotten for almost a millennium until the true potential of water was rediscovered and expanded for various other uses as well. Friedel also summarizes the changes in the speed of technological advancement. He explains that change was very gradual during the time, of what is sometimes termed as the First Industrial Revolution, from 1000-1300. Then with slight improvements the pace increased during 1500-1700. This period is explained by him as the time ‘of enormous changes in the status and meaning of technology.’ (154) The period of sixteenth and seventeenth century then lead to the Industrial Revolution, which marks the greatest technological advancement in the history of mankind.

Since then there has been no stopping. The growth of technology has now become exponential and it is increasing with time. Today, Progress has become a part of the day to day life of man. Technological advancements are no longer a miracle but just steps in the process. Business and economics figure in Friedel’s account of culture but do not dominate it. Friedel takes pains to distinguish his concept of improvement from the notion of progress that economic historians such as Joel Mokyr and David Landes take as central to their accounts of essentially the same material.

While Friedel acknowledges economic incentives and offers numerous insights into the ways they influenced technical practitioners, he considers the drive for improvement a broader and deeper phenomenon that operates through mechanisms other than just the market. The pursuit of improvement stems from broad cultural values, which may encompass a commitment to markets but are never entirely subservient to them. These values, moreover, speak to a complex brew of human emotions. Though his technicians often profit handsomely from their efforts at improvement, seldom in Friedel’s telling do they come off essentially as wealth seekers.

Their satisfaction derives from deeper sources. Tellingly, the few numbers Friedel provides typically pertain to technical measures of performance rather than economic ones. For all its range, this work does not offer a truly comprehensive treatment of the