Creating the Twentieth Century: Technical Innovations of 1867-1914 and Their Lasting Impact (Technical Revolutions and Their Lasting Impact)

The period between 1867 and 1914 remains the greatest watershed in human history since the emergence of settled agricultural societies: the time when an expansive civilization based on synergy of fuels, science, and technical innovation was born. At its beginnings in the 1870s were dynamite, the telephone, photographic film, and the first light bulbs. Its peak decade - the astonishing 1880s - brought electricity - generating plants, electric motors, steam turbines, the gramophone, cars, aluminum production, air-filled rubber tires, and prestressed concrete. And its post-1900 period saw the first airplanes, tractors, radio signals and plastics, neon lights and assembly line production. This book is a systematic interdisciplinary account of the history of this outpouring of European and American intellect and of its truly epochal consequences. It takes a close look at four fundamental classes of these epoch-making innovations: formation, diffusion, and standardization of electric systems; invention and rapid adoption of internal combustion engines; the unprecedented pace of new chemical syntheses and material substitutions; and the birth of a new information age. These chapters are followed by an evaluation of the lasting impact these advances had on the 20th century, that is, the creation of high-energy societies engaged in mass production aimed at improving standards of living. ## Abstract This book is a systematic interdisciplinary account of the history of unprecedented technical advances that took place in Europe and North America during the three pre-WWI generations and of their truly epochal consequences. It takes a close look at four classes of fundamental innovations: formation, diffusion, and standardization of electricity-generating systems and the distribution and uses of this most versatile form of energy; invention and rapid adoption of internal combustion engines, the dominant prime mover in transportation; the unprecedented pace of the introduction of new materials and industrial chemical syntheses; and the birth of a new information age thanks to the new means of communication. These chapters are followed by an evaluation of the lasting impact these advances had on the 20th century, that is, the creation of high-energy societies engaged in mass production aimed at improving standards of living. "The greatest technical discontinuity in history took place between 1867 and 1914. This era was distinguished by the most extraordinary concatenation of a large number of scientific and technical advances the synergy of which produced bold and imaginative innovations as well as ingenious improvements of older ideas, by the rapidity with which these innovations were improved after their introduction, by their prompt commercial adoption and widespread diffusion, and by the extent of the resulting socio-economic impacts." "Most of these innovations were greatly improved by subsequent research and development and some were superseded - but no post-WWI period ever equaled the epoch-making impact of pre-1914 technical advances that created the very foundations of modern civilization. This interdisciplinary book systematically traces and explains the genesis, evolution and lasting consequences of this great technical saltation."--Jacket

Interdisciplinary scholar Smil (U. of Manitoba) examines the roots of today's advanced technologies and finds them nestling in the technologically astounding period from the end of the Civil War to the First World War. He traces back the genealogy of electricity, the internal combustion engine, new materials and syntheses, communications and information, and finds that one reason why they have become so much a part of us is because most of that "stuff" has become more or less a mental commodity, an entitlement, and a part of being "regular folk" in society. He concentrates on the period that caused the greatest discontinuity of all, that which brought us to accept a fantasy such as instant communication as completely normal and completely necessary. Annotation © 2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The two pre-World War I generations encompassed the greatest innovative period in history. Technical inventions of 1867-1914 & their rapid improvement & commercialisation created new prime movers, materials, infrastructures & information means that provided the lasting foundations of the modern world Imagine an exceedingly sapient and durable civilization that began scanning a bubble of space, say 100 light years in diameter, for signs of intelligent life about half a billion years ago.