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 do the job, and his book can serve as a model for similar studies so badly needed for many other parts of Europe in the same years. Richard W. Unger Dr. Unger is a professor of history at the University of British Coluinbia. His first book dealt with Dutch Shipbuilding before 1800 and he is now doing a study of Dutch brewing from the early Middle Ages to 1900. Hydraulics and Hydraulic Research: A Historical Review. Edited by Gunther Garbrecht. Rotterdam: A. A. Balkema, 1987. Pp. ix + 362; illustra tions, bibliography. FI 165.00; $85.00; £53.50. Available from A. A. Balkema, P. O. Box 230, Accord, Massachusetts 02018. The history of hydraulics begins with ancient devices to pump, divert, and transport water. No resource is more basic to human civ ilization, yet there is little in historical writing on water systems or water science. What historians know about hydraulics comes largely from a literature by the practitioners themselves. A new volume of essays by the International Association for Hydraulic Research (IAHR) is perhaps the broadest of these investigations. Edited by Günther Garbrecht, Hydraulics and Hydraulic Research brings together thirty-two authors in a survey that spans sixteen countries and 5,000 years. TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 951 The book grew out of a 1985 symposium that commemorated the fiftieth year ofthis international research association. Founded in 1935 by directors of hydraulic laboratories, expanded two years later to include scientists and engineers, the IAHR has looked to its past for sources of professional objectives and values. In Hydraulics and Hy draulic Research the contributors take pride in this profession—“a branch of civil engineering devoted not to military or repressive purposes but to the well-being of all the people” (p. ix). This is not to say that hydraulic technologies have always been peaceful. Waterway engi neering was once a branch of military science in many European countries. Despite some confusion on this point, the book is impres sive. It reviews a large body of technical and scientific writing from the Greeks to the recent work of computer simulation. Most chapters are well documented and illustrated with maps, tables, drawings, and photographs. If there is a common theme in Hydraulics and Hydraulic Research, it is that science evolved apart from construction despite the link be tween theory and practice in a few great minds. “Engineering in the millenniums b.c. was much more a creative art than a profession based on science,” Garbrecht explains. Scientific activity was “sterile” and confined to “esoteric circles” (pp. 21-22). Thus the chapter on Vi truvius and Frontinus is limited to a stone-by-stone review of Roman aqueduct design. Not...
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Nov 29, 2023
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