136 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Feudal scientists operated in the Hellenic mode, usually supported by great trading cities or the church. At this juncture Dorn separates science from technology, with science linked to philosophy and theory, technology to goals. In this respect technology owed much to magic, but it was gunpowder that unleashed European technology by making goals attainable. Technol ogists were pressed into the service of the state when it became clear that military technology could make the difference between survival and defeat. Feudal Europe reinvented the Babylonian model. It was, however, a reinvention with a difference. In the hydraulic civilizations there had been no obvious or immediate penalty for failure to innovate. In the European militaristic version the penalty for failure to develop new technology was absolute. In a final chapter Dorn argues provocatively that, in applied science and technology, the United States has largely returned to the Baby lonian model of science for the ends of the state. Large, faceless research teams are organized to solve practical problems in agricul ture and defense. He notes that “the Bureau of Reclamation has . . . exercised more authority than even a dynasty of Oriental despots” (p. 156). This can be traced (appropriately, perhaps, given their claim to be intellectual descendants of one of the lost tribes of Israel) to the Mormons, who reinvented hydraulic civilization to survive in the wilderness of the Great Salt Desert, and who have since achieved dominance in agricultural research. Dorn thus reaches two conclusions. The differential origin of science and technology in Europe produced a permanent and pro ductive tension between science and technology. Second, the milita ristic version of Babylonian science is geared to constant innovation. This has considerable implications for a developing literature in macroeconomics in which innovation is seen by many as the driving mechanism of long cycles in the global economy. Peter J. Hugill Dr. Hugill is professor of geography at Texas A&M University. He has published on the relationship between roads, automobiles, and American culture and on the making of the American landscape. His most recent book, World Trade since 1431 : Geography, Technology and Capitalism, is published by Johns Hopkins University Press. Paradise Restored: The Mechanical Arts from Antiquity through the Thir teenth Century. By Elspeth Whitney. Philadelphia: American Philo sophical Society, 1990. Pp. 169; notes, bibliography, index. $20.00 (paper). Were medieval intellectual attitudes toward practical technologies always negative? After long debate, declares Elspeth Whitney, “several important questions . . . about medieval concepts of technology . . . TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 137 remain largely unresolved” (p. 6). She argues that we can assess the significance of medieval scholars’ views only if we are prepared to broaden our perspective by looking to the tradition of classical philosophy. She finds a certain ambiguity among ancient authors, even in Plato and Aristotle, on whose ideas so many medieval European perspectives were based. If Aristotle did not regard the productive arts very highly, he did at least find a place for them, albeit a rather subordinate place in his classificatory scheme of things. Other ancient writers, notably, Romans such as Cicero, were much more impressed by the achievements of human skill. However, Whitney maintains that the concept of “mechanical arts,” commonly seven, parallel to the seven liberal arts, provided a route to the full intellectual rehabilitation of technology. These mechanical crafts could then be esteemed as necessary for human survival and comfort or as worthy in themselves if they let themselves be guided by pious and reverential ends. Thus some scholars like Hugh of St. Victor and Richard Kilwardby could allow these mechanical arts quite a respectable role. They could be linked to theoretical sciences, to which they offered a practical, productive face. They could even have a limited intellectual interest. Nevertheless, taxonomic questions, questions of definition, do seem to be the primary concern of these scholars. We can imagine Hugh strolling through the artisan streets of Paris, learning the names of all the many tools that were used and materials that were produced there. But did he pursue matters further: did he learn from the craftsmen? Did technical men even know about these discussions of the learned, let alone rejoice that they had been granted a...
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Jun 1, 2007
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