Zeewezen en wetenschap: De wetenschap en de ontwikkeling van de navigatietechniek in Nederland tussen 1585 en 1815 by C. A. Davids

Abstract

technology and culture Book Reviews 949 apart from presenting soundly documented research results to the scholarly community. Martin M. Elbl Mr. Elbl is an independent researcher currently on the staff of GEMINI Consul­ tants, Toronto. His particular area of study covers Portuguese and Spanish shipbuilding and naval history from the late Middle Ages to early modern times. He is currently coordinating a project involving the critical translation into English of early Spanish and Portuguese treatises on navigation and shipbuilding. Zeewezen en wetenschap: De wetenschap en de ontwikkeling van de navigatietechniek in Nederland tussen 1585 en 1815. By C. A. Davids. Am­ sterdam: De Bataafsche Leeuw, 1986. Pp. 518; illustrations, tables, notes, appendixes, bibliography, indexes. FI 55.00. This is more than an excellent scholarly study of the evolution of navigation techniques used in the Netherlands between the revolt against Spanish rule and the end of the Napoleonic period. Not only does C. A. Davids place that development in the context of European science and technology, he uses it as a case study for the evaluation of sociological theories of the diffusion of technology. This is notjust a book about the thoughts of great men or just a book about what was written or taught in the schools. Davids makes an effort to find out who used what techniques and when and, last, why. It was possible for sailors to find their way at sea without the benefit of theories or knowledge generated by scientists. Early medieval Viking and modern Polynesian navigators show that. Dutch sailors in the 17th and 18th centuries gave up their traditional methods and borrowed from grow­ ing scientific knowledge. This book is an attempt to explain the forces that promoted that change. To establish the influence of science, Davids describes the ways navigators found their way at sea and generates measures of the dif­ fusion of scientific knowledge. He examines the wills of sea captains to see what instruments and books on seamanship they owned. He reviews hundreds of ships’ logs to see what captains actually did. He discusses the curriculum in schools and the literature available to navigators. Having chronicled the pace of change, he then confronts the facts with the theories in a final lengthy chapter. Davids’s approach not only generates a comprehensive discussion of technical change that relies on standard as well as novel sources all inventively used; it also generates distinctions between innovation generated by demand and innovation generated by supply. He finds that the use of new methods was related to where ships went. The longer the voyage and the further from home, not surprisingly, the more likely that sailors used equipment and methods derived from scientific work. That is 950 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE most obvious for the years around 1600. He finds certain institutions forced scientific findings on Dutch navigators. The United East India Company required their captains to pass fixed examinations begin­ ning in the mid-18th century. He identifies a group of prominent individuals in Amsterdam and in other large towns who favored the introduction and spread of scientific findings and used their political influence even in the 17th century to promote improvements in nav­ igation. Although the discussion of theory is at times turgid, and although its relevance is at times somewhat opaque, the ideas of others do serve to concentrate description and to identify productive sources. The bibliography is exhaustive and especially so with 17th- and 18th-century manuals on sailing. The appendixes describe various navigational techniques in adequate detail, supplemented by appro­ priate drawings. At times the detail in the text seems too extensive. Davids has not fully succeeded in finding out why innovations occur or in explaining why the Netherlands relinquished its lead in navi­ gation to England and France in the course of the 18th century. But he has effectively summarized the history of navigation in the Neth­ erlands in the most important period of its maritime expansion. More­ over, he has shown how the study of navigation can and does fit into the history of science and of technology in the period. The history of navigation has not been well served in the past. Davids has shown how to...