New work on early modern Europe has now opened up the hidden avenues that link changes of technologies with a complex of cognitive, institutional, spatial and cultural elements. It is true that all divisions of history wish to incorporate all other divisions unto themselves, but in the essays of our first collection there are specific cases and analyses clearly delineated to show how technologies and systems for the production, reproduction and representation of technological changes emerged out of fundamental aspects of European society and mentality. The question must be: How far were such fundamental aspects unique (in their entirety and configuration) to Europe? The second collection on patent agency takes the modern industrialization of Europe as its focus, and illustrates the manner in which systems of intellectual property rights generated manifold agencies that acted to both spread and control the use of knowledge in advanced sites. Patent agency has been generally neglected by historians, one reason for this being the difficulty of defining effective agency beyond the obvious confines of those who were actually trained and remunerated as agents of invention. Informal networks or sites may have been crucial in converting general patent systems into local environs of technical advance.

The technical problems confronting different societies and periods, and the measures taken to solve them form the concern of this annual collection of essays. Volumes contain technical articles ranging widely in subject, time and region, as well as general papers on the history of technology. In addition to dealing with the history of technical discovery and change, History of Technology also explores the relations of technology to other aspects of life -- social, cultural and economic -- and shows how technological development has shaped, and been shaped by, the society in which it occurred.

The technical problems confronting different societies and periods, and the measures taken to solve them form the concern of this annual collection of essays. Volumes contain technical articles ranging widely in subject, time and region, as well as general papers on the history of technology. In addition to dealing with the history of technical discovery and change, History of Technology also explores the relations of technology to other aspects of life -- social, cultural and economic -- and shows how technological development has shaped, and been shaped by, the society in which it occurred.

The technical problems confronting different societies and periods, and the measures taken to solve them form the concern of this annual collection of essays. Volumes contain technical articles ranging widely in subject, time and region, as well as general papers on the history of technology. In addition to dealing with the history of technical discovery and change, History of Technology also explores the relations of technology to other aspects of life -- social, cultural and economic -- and shows how technological development has shaped, and been shaped by, the society in which it occurred.

The technical problems confronting different societies and periods, and the measures taken to solve them form the concern of this annual collection of essays. Volumes contain technical articles ranging widely in subject, time and region, as well as general papers on the history of technology. In addition to dealing with the history of technical discovery and change, History of Technology also explores the relations of technology to other aspects of life -- social, cultural and economic -- and shows how technological development has shaped, and been shaped by, the society in which it occurred.

This volume provides an overview of current research in the history of Italian technology in the long run, from the early Middle Ages to the 20th century. The contributors focus on different aspects of Italian creativity in a local, transnational and global dimension, tracing the trajectory from primacy to relative decline. The themes range from the creation and establishment of new technologies in laboratories or enterprises, the processes of learning, diffusion, and copying and the institutions involved in the generation of a national technological capability and innovation system. Comparative studies are included in order to illustrate special features of the Italian case. The industries covered in this volume range from silk, iron and steel production, to electricity generation and telecommunications. Special Issue: Italian Technology from the Renaissance to the 20th Century Edited by Anna Guagnini and Luca Mola Included in this volume: Inventors, Patents and the Market for Innovations in Renaissance Italy The Microcosm: Technological Innovation and the Transfer of Mechanical Knowledge in the Habsburg Empire of the Sixteenth century Diamonds in Early Modern Venice: Technology, Products and International Competition A Global Supremacy. The Worldwide Hegemony of the Piedmontese Reeling Technologies, 1720s-1830s Raw Materials, Transmission of Know-How and Ceramic Techniques in Early Modern Italy: a Mediterranean perspective Anabaptist Migration and the Diffusion of the Maiolica from Faenza to Central Europe A Bold Leap into Electric Light. The Creation of the Società Italiana Edison, 1880-1886 Keeping Abreast with the Technology of Science. The Economic Life of the Physics Laboratory at the University of Padua, 1847-1857 Mechanics “Made in Italy”: Innovation and Expertise Evolution. A Case Study from the Packaging Industry, 1960-98 Telecommunications Italian Style. The shaping of the constitutive choices (1850-1914) Beyond the Myth of the Self-taught Inventor. The Learning Process and Formative Years of Young Guglielmo Marconi Technology Transfer, Economic Strategies and Politics in the Building of the First Italian Submarine Telegraph Lights and Shades: Italian Innovation Across the Centuries European Steel vs Chinese Cast-iron: From Technological Change to Social and Political Choices (4th Century BC-18th Century AD) The Italian National Innovation System. A Long Term Perspective, 1861-2011

The annual collections in the History of Technology series look at the history of technological discovery and change, exploring the relationship of technology to other aspects of life and showing how technological development is affected by the society in which it occurred.

Technical standards have received increasing attention in recent years from historians of science and technology, management theorists and economists. Often, inquiry focuses on the emergence of stability, technical closure and culturally uniform modernity. Yet current literature also emphasizes the durability of localism, heterogeneity and user choice. This collection investigates the apparent tension between these trends using case studies from across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The History of Technology addresses tensions between material standards and process standards, explores the distinction between specifying standards and achieving convergence towards them, and examines some of the discontents generated by the reach of standards into 'everyday life'. Includes the Special Issue "By whose standards? Standardization, stability and uniformity in the history of information and electrical technologies"

The technical problems confronting different societies and periods and the measures taken to solve them form the concern of this annual collection of essays. It deals with the history of technical discovery and change and explores the relationship of technology to other aspects of life--social, cultural and economic--and shows how technological development has shaped, and been shaped by, the society in which it occurred.

The technical problems confronting different societies in different periods and the measures taken to solve them form the concern of this annual collection of essays. Dealing with the history of technical discovery and change, the volumes in this series explore the relationship of technology to other aspects of life-social, cultural and economic-and show how technological development has shaped, and been shaped by, the society in which it has occurred.