Medieval Technology and Social Change

by Lynn Townsend White Jr.

Book Overview

This study examines the role of technological innovation during the rise of social groups in the Middle Ages This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195002660
• Release Date: December 1966
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 5.3" x 0.5" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

The Great Stirrup Controversy

Halsall gets it wrong. The great controversy is still going on about feudalism as a system arising from a technological innovation, the stirrup. White's details about the stirrup and change of warfare are partly insufficient and conclusions partly dubious. - But this is exactly, why we read history. The causes of events tend to be very complicated. Luckily there is Trivial Pursuit and other parlour games for people, who prefer "facts".This book is seminal.

A great work that connects technological and social history

This is one of the classic works of medieval studies to emerge out of the past half century, and its importance far outstrips whether or not White's famous stirrup thesis is correct or not. The overwhelming consensus is that it is incorrect. But only someone who has not read the book could imagine that that thesis was the bulk of the book, or the only idea in it. In fact, there is an unstated, larger thesis that underlies White's book, and which indicates why it is important: White implies that we can only understand the medieval period if we also understand its technology. White virtually ushered in the age of the study of medieval technology and seeing it as intimately connected and underlying the social and even political history.This is a short book, shorter than it initially seems upon holding it because of the vast number of foot and endnotes. But the number of ideas and insights are completely out of proportion with the book's apparent brevity. It is absolutely stuffed to overflowing with content. Miraculously, that doesn't effect its readability. Even a relative neophyte to historical studies will have little difficulty following White's ideas and arguments, although, obviously, the more one knows, the better the background one will have for understanding his theses.Although his stirrup thesis has largely been rejected, this remains an essential book on any short list of the great works of medieval history. More than that, it is fun, too. I strongly recommend it to anyone with the slightest degree of interest in medieval history.

Relevant, not outdated

This book was part of the PhD curriculim at a top-tier university for Public Policy. The course was Science & Technology Policy I (a massive literature review before getting into our own research). Whether or not the chain of events and relationships occurred precisely as White postulates is irrelevant. The POINT is that small, technological change can have GIANT impacts upon life and social organization. This has been proven repeatedly by the researchers/students of complexity science (see Mitchell Waldrop, Murray Gell-Mann, Roger Lewin, John Holland, etc.) By connecting medieval technological change (eg agrarian practices, stirrup, clock) to societal change (eg feudal system, settlement/town patterns), this book provides readers with a conceptual starting point to begin thinking about the impact of modern and future technologies. In short, its a quick, VERY stimulating and interesting read. With the price at only 2 dollars, you can't go wrong!

A classic summary of the impact of technology on life

I have gone back to this book a couple of times a year since I was in graduate school back in the 1960s. What Lynn White brings home is that a little technological innovation like the invention and use of the stirrup (combined with some better horse breeding) was an instrumental element in the creation of an entire feudal society in northern Europe. It doesn't take a genius to recognize that those small changes have an impact that far exceeds their immediate effect. This is a very basic and easy to read book (despite some untranslated Latin and French), and to anyone interested in the long run effect of technology it is the place to begin.

Jammed full of information

Although this book has been around for awhile, it represents a truly amazing source of information on the role which technology played in Medieval society. I thought that the first two parts of the book, dealing with changes in technologies of war and agriculture and their effect on Medieval society were by far the strongest part of the work. At times, I found the meticulous description of the archaelogy and etymology of various objects and words a bit much, but I was fascinated by the way in which White linked technological progress to the emergence of numerous aspects of Medieval life. I didn't enjoy the final section, on machinery, as much because it seemed to loose its focus on the social changes caused by the technology, although it did mention the new ethos that mechanical development fostered. I have done some more reading on the subject, and some critics have argued that White overstates the importance of the stirrup, but regardless about where the various historical controversies are today, this book provides a superb introduction to the field and would be a great resource to anyone doing research.