Search -
The Social Context of Innovation: Bureaucrats, Families, and Heroes in the Early Industrial Revolution, as Foreseen in Bacon's "New Atlantis"
The Social Context of Innovation Bureaucrats Families and Heroes in the Early Industrial Revolution as Foreseen in Bacon's New Atlantis Author:Anthony F. C. Wallace The history of technology, Anthony F. C. Wallace contends, must be imagined and investigated within a broader history of society. In these insightful essays, Wallace offers a multigenerational examination of the underlying social forces and everyday settings impelling and enabling early industrial innovation. The gradual development of the st... more »eam engine is illuminated through an examination of the far-reaching but unintentional role played by the British royal ordnance and naval establishments. Wallace shows how the efforts of three generations of the Darby family improved iron production. Finally, the sources of failure in industrial innovation are illustrated through the example of deep-shaft coal mining in nineteenth-century Pennsylvania, which went bankrupt because of inadequately financed operators who ignored standard safety procedures.« less