By: Ian Inkster (Editor)

Hardcover

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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.

Special Issue: Conceptualising the Production and Diffusion of Useful and Reliable Knowledge in Early Modern Europe; Introduction; 1. Engineering and the Culture of Knowledge in Late Sixteenth-Century Rome: Floods, aqueducts, obelisks, Pamela Long (Independent Scholar); 2. Knowledge and Power: Who defined useful knowledge in early modern Europe?, Karel Davids (Amsterdam); 3. Embodiment, Accumulation and Management: Three crucial issues for thinking about the production and diffusion of 'useful and reliable knowledge, Lissa Roberts (Twente); 4. Role and Perception of the Mechanical Arts between the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times, Simona Valerian (LSE); 5. Artisans, Operative Skills and Labour Rationalities at the Beginning of the Industrial Revolution, Lilian Perez (University Paris-Diderot); Special Issue: Patent Agency in History: Intellectual Property and Technological Change; Introduction; 6. Patents Agency in Spanish History, David Pretel (University of Cambridge) and Patricio Diaz; 7. The Litigations Concerning Renault's Patents at the Beginning of the 20th Century, Gabriel Galvez-Behar (Universite Lille 3); 8. Patents, Agency and Useful and Reliable Knowledge: Perspectives, historical vignettes and research implications, Ian Inkster (Wenzao College, Kaohsiung and Nottingham Trent University); 9. Agency and the Patent System in the Late 19th Century, Anna Guagnini (Bologna); 10. Luca Mola (European University in Florence); 11. The Oldest Patent Granted in Mexico and Latin America, Dr. Manuel Marquez (Virginia Commonwealth University, US).

ISBN: 9781441152794
ISBN-10: 1441152792
Series: History of technology series
Audience: General
Format: Hardcover
Language: English
Number Of Pages: 176
Published: 22nd November 2012
Dimensions (cm): 23.4 x 15.6  x 1.9
Weight (kg): 0.41