Reflections on the Transmission and Transformation of Technologies: Agriculture, Printing and Gunpowder between East and West

Abstract

This paper considers three major areas of technological innovation – agriculture, gunpowder weapons, and printing – in the light of broad comparisons between China in the Tang to Yuan periods, and Western Europe in the late middle ages and early modern period. Through a discussion of the social and political effects of these innovations, the paper opens the question of how far it is useful to attempt to discuss technology in purely technical terms, and whether it is meaningful to speak of any technology outside its concrete social context.