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Is Imperial hugeness a key factor? If so, why not the Achaemenids, the Chinese? Why assume that a massive empire in necessary though? It doesn't take that empi

Is Imperial hugeness a key factor? If so, why not the Achaemenids, the Chinese? Why assume that a massive empire in necessary though? It doesn't take that empire-scale resources to build any of these. These aren't really more resource intensive than a Mill to invent or build. The steam engine, which Bret focuses on, is a pretty localized device... unlike textiles and metals which can be exported easily. Even if export is a key driver, there were plenty of small or decentralized civilisations that could have easily leveraged massive economic zones. The Phoenicians, for example, could have conceivably built the export economy Britain ultimately built in the 18th century. BTW, I didn't mean to neg on the author. I enjoyed the essay a lot. I felt it was a discussion piece, so discussing. Personally, I'm inclined to think the "when" is more important that the "where," if it isn't mostly a matter of chance. IE, if England hadn't industrialised first, another country would have. Once you have a widespread mentality that produces thoughts like: "I'm going to try building an automatic loom," I believe that many of the challenges early modern engineers overcame could have been overcome at many times. The steam engine might have required symbioses with coal fuel and coal mining needs, but metallurgy (as others point out) and weaving (the flying shuttle) don't. If you are a well resourced blacksmith you can have a crack at metallurgy. I think that in 18th century england, enough people were educated in engineering. In renaissance Italy, Da Vinci was pretty unique... and the only textbooks he had were Aristotle and such. Why are there more startups in 2022 than in 1992? The culture had yet to develop.

inglor_cz 4y ago
Hugeness maybe not, but highly developed internal market always helps. One of the overlooked factors that the author mentions briefly is metallurgy. Better metals translate to better machines. Even today, quite a lot of our technological effort is stymied by metallurgy. For example, China still struggles to develop a reliable jet engine for its fighters, and it took a lot of time for SpaceX to stop Raptor2 combustion chambers from melting in the heat. (IDK if this has been fully solved actually. But they are conducting static fires.) A steam engine needs to tolerate a lot of pressure. Ancient metals couldn't do that.
yywwbbn 4y ago
We have very little understanding about how most other empires functioned. For instance we know were little about the Achaemenids and what we do know comes almost exclusively from Greek sources. Rome is the most understood and researched ancient empire in the west which naturally makes it a primary candidate for such discussion. > Why assume that a massive empire in necessary though? I agree. Even Britain wasn’t exactly an empire in this sense during the late 18th century. And even if we go back to Rome, technological progress didn’t really stop after Rome “fell”. It might have even accelerated in some regions of Western Europe after the worst periods of the dark ages were over. By if we look at more practical fields like agriculture and metallurgy Europeans were already quite a bit more advanced than the Romans (who arguably had entered a period of stagnation several centuries before the fall of the Western Empire) ever were by ~900 AD.

inglor_cz 4y ago

Hugeness maybe not, but highly developed internal market always helps. One of the overlooked factors that the author mentions briefly is metallurgy. Better metals translate to better machines. Even today, quite a lot of our technological effort is stymied by metallurgy. For example, China still struggles to develop a reliable jet engine for its fighters, and it took a lot of time for SpaceX to stop Raptor2 combustion chambers from melting in the heat. (IDK if this has been fully solved actually. But they are conducting static fires.) A steam engine needs to tolerate a lot of pressure. Ancient metals couldn't do that.

yywwbbn 4y ago

We have very little understanding about how most other empires functioned. For instance we know were little about the Achaemenids and what we do know comes almost exclusively from Greek sources. Rome is the most understood and researched ancient empire in the west which naturally makes it a primary candidate for such discussion. > Why assume that a massive empire in necessary though? I agree. Even Britain wasn’t exactly an empire in this sense during the late 18th century. And even if we go back to Rome, technological progress didn’t really stop after Rome “fell”. It might have even accelerated in some regions of Western Europe after the worst periods of the dark ages were over. By if we look at more practical fields like agriculture and metallurgy Europeans were already quite a bit more advanced than the Romans (who arguably had entered a period of stagnation several centuries before the fall of the Western Empire) ever were by ~900 AD.