HIST 108 H01 22472

Humanities, HistoryCiv, GHS, VSR

The development of science and technology and their roles in world civilizations from antiquity to the present. FS: 12/7/2016. CL: 2020.

Notes:

* Science and Technology in World History considers the historical development of science and technology globally since the Urban Revolution, about 6000 BCE. The need to manage and maintain large settlements with high population density required centralized political and economic authority, writing, massive construction, and intensified agriculture. All four developments, (hierarchical authority, writing, agriculture, and material culture), which will be themes in this course, underlay the development of knowledge that allowed much broader and deeper uses of nature, which is the foundation of science. The things they made were technologies. Through the subsequent 8000 years humans have invented and disseminated more and more ways to understand and use nature- this is the story of the development of science and technology. The course is designed for students with a particular interest in science, technology, engineering, and/or mathematics, though students need not be majors in these disciplines.