Innovation after the French Revolution, or, Innovation Transformed: From Word to Concept

Abstract

For centuries, innovation has been a pejorative concept, and there has been no study of what innovation is. How, when and why did innovation become an object of theory – and dreams? This paper is about that key moment in the history of innovation as a concept. Innovation got rehabilitated at the moment when it came to be defined as utility or progress. This occurred between c.1750 and c.1850: innovation becomes instrumental to political and social – and later economic – goals