Technology of the Middle Ages

Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel: Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages 
by Frances and Joseph Gies


"Philosophy in the early Middle Ages was in fact virtually indistinguishable from religion, and science was indeed its handmaid.  Medieval theologians would have been surprised to learn that there was any difference among the three spheres of thought." (p 76)

For more than a century following the publication in 1776 of  Edward Gibbon's massive tome, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, the Middle Ages were indicted as "the triumph of barbarism and religion".  In doing this he coupled the two bête noires of the intellectuals of his day, with the Catholic Church especially complicit in its rejection of change in science and agriculture. Yet in the present book the authors proffer evidence that the dark ages were not nearly so dark as assumed by many. They demonstrate this by chronicling the developments in technology over the centuries preceding the Renaissance. Some of these included the magnetic compass which would enable the voyages of discovery in the fifteenth century, water power for industry, and new designs for ships with full rigging. Europe did not develop ideas in isolation but was able to adopt ideas originating in the civilizations of Islam, India and China.

The book's scope is the thousand years from the fall of the Western Roman Empire to the discovery of the New World. The authors divide the book into seven chapters into which they arrange most of their material chronologically.  In the chapter on "The Not so Dark Ages: A.D. 500-900" the authors debunk the notion that little happened in those four hundred years. The authors discuss warfare, textiles, agriculture, and the ways in which long-distance navigation and trade spurred urban growth in northwest Europe. Using archaeological research published as recently as 1990, the authors describe how "specialized trading settlements called 'emporia' and 'gateway communities' sprang up near the North Sea and Channel coasts" in the seventh and eighth centuries (p. 43).

One of the most valuable chapters is "The Asian Connection." The authors remind us that although the revival of the European economy and the re-urbanization of Europe are often described as a "Renaissance" of classical antiquity, some of the most crucial technological innovations came from beyond Europe.  These imports include the trio of gunpowder, the printing press, and the magnetic compass. The physical configuration of early-modern cities, the nature of their intellectual life, and the potential of Europeans to begin a program of overseas expansion depended more upon inventions borrowed from Asia than any revival of Roman technology. 

The book also chronicles the onset and expansion of the commercial revolution and the consequent growth of cities. The authors explore the environmental impact of land reclamation and deforestation. They note that "the growing pressures of construction and industry brought Europeans for the first time to a consciousness of the forest's limits" (p. 171).  The book concludes with the voyages of Columbus and the products of the genius of Da Vinci as the dawn of the Renaissance was on the horizon.


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Books Fade into the Ethernet

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore 
by Robin Sloan


“After that, the book will fade, the way all books fade in your mind. But I hope you will remember this:

A man walking fast down a dark lonely street. Quick steps and hard breathing, all wonder and need. A bell above a door and the tinkle it makes. A clerk and a ladder and warm golden light, and then: the right book exactly, at exactly the right time.”   ― Robin Sloan, Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore



The story begins with an unemployed young techie with an art school degree who spends his days browsing the web for want-ads, among other things, and reading--mostly the latter. He is Clay Jannon and his life is changed when he starts walking around his home base of San Francisco and happens upon a strange-looking bookstore with a sign in the window:
"HELP WANTED: Late Shift, Specific Requirements, Good Benefits"
The name of the bookstore is "Mr. Penumbra's 24-hour Bookstore".
The adventure Clay begins when he decides to take that job is initially beyond his imagination.  It combines elements of fantasy, mystery, friendship and adventure as a way of looking at the modern conflict and transition between new technology (electronic) and old (print books).   It requires him to cooperate and sometimes scheme with new friends in pursuing elusive clues.  At the heart of the novel is the collision of that old-world handwork and the automated digital age.

The new technology is very Google-oriented as Clay, soon after becoming comfortable in his new job, meets a Google employee named Kat who impresses him with her programming ability. Clay is forbidden to open the books yet required to describe the borrowers in great detail to the owner, Alex Penumbra. Late-night boredom catalyzes his curiosity, and soon Clay discovers that the books are part of a vast code.  And it is not long before they are investigating the secrets of the strange bookstore. For it is strange in that it sells very few books and seems to exist for a mysterious society of book lovers who form a club that has access to private stacks in the back of the store. The secrets hidden in the books stretch back to the initial revolution in printing started by Gutenberg. It is this and other mysteries that create the suspense that sustains this lightweight but definitely interesting first novel.

Intertwined among the mysteries is Clay's love for an obscure fantasy novel by Clark Moffat called The Dragon-Song Chronicles. There is no way to say much more about the complicated plot without giving away too much of the enjoyment of discovering along with Clay the secrets behind the 24-Hour Bookstore.
This is an entertaining book that will appeal to both fantasy lovers and those who like mysteries. With its focus on the latest internet technology the story presents an interesting analogy between the printing revolution begun by Gutenberg and the digital revolution in books as it is being promoted by Google and other internet behemoths. 

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The Epic Sweep of Ideas

The Diamond Age: 

Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer

by Neal Stephenson

"Now nanotechnology had made nearly anything possible, and so the cultural role in deciding what should be done with it had become far more important than imagining what could be done with it." (p 31)

Neal Stephenson describes our world after nanotechnology has revolutionised every aspect of it, and introduces the reader to members at polarised ends of the class divide: Nell, a young "thete" who comes into possession of a "magic" book created by John Percival Hackworth an artifex for the New Victorians (pardon the jargon, but if you read this book you'll have to get used to it). The story itself is sprawling, almost Dickensian with a postmodern twist. The comparison with Dickens comes to mind as the future world of the novel mirrors the Victorian era (as seen through a fun-house mirror). But it also reminds me of any of the great SF of the golden age that posited the fantastic in new and exciting ways. Another reminder of Dickens is the descriptive heading for each chapter that were inexplicably uninformative. And the heroine's name is Nell. 
Stephenson impressed me with the fecundity of his imaginative ideas in a future world that includes the Feed, which allows most anything to be created at any outlet (think Star Trek replicators), making for a minimum standard of living for all mankind, and the spread of nanotechnology. This technology at the smallest imaginable scale makes for many fun clouds of mites -- engineered nano-probes that fly (swarm !) about, gathering information or doing nasty (or nice) things. The mites reminded me a bit of the computermite concept that Jeff Noon developed in his hilarious novel, Automated Alice. 
Viruses affecting humans have also now become, in a sense, technological ones as people can be infected by these mites. A popular form of entertainment in this brave new world are so-called ractives (interactives). There is little live theatre in this world any longer, but there are still many ractors -- actors who play along in these interactive scenes. 
Much of the action takes place in or near Shanghai and this allows the reasonable inclusion of Confucius-like principles in the narrative. The most interesting story-line is Nell's growth through the use of an interactive book that serves as a teacher and as an alternate world to that she actually lives in. Conceived as a prod to the imagination by a scientist, John Percival Hackworth, who creates a unique copy of the Young Lady's Illustrated Primer. It was originally intended for the daughter of a prominent member of the society, but Hackworth goes to the Chinese territories to make a second copy for his own daughter -- a copy that then makes its way into the hands of our poor little Nell, abused daughter of a neglectful mother. It is her interaction with this primer that leads to much of the best action in the novel. Hackworth, however, gets in a great deal of trouble for losing the Primer and makes several deals to extricate himself from this mess -- and a Chinese Judge, Fang, Dr. X, and the search for the Alchemist. 
I was impressed the least with the tales told by the primer to Nell. However the breadth of ideas, even when they are not completely fleshed out, kept my interest level fairly high. And while the concluding sections of the novel were somewhat anarchic Stephenson presents a future vision that has both believable ideas and epic sweep.


The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson. Bantam Books, 2000 (1995)

Two Techno-Thrillers

Daemon and  Freedom TM

by Daniel Suarez

“In all, his outfit required nearly two thousand man-years of research and development, eight barrels of oil, and sixteen patent and trademark infringement lawsuits. All so he could possess casual style. A style that, in logistical requirements, was comparable to fielding a nineteenth-century military brigade.  But he looked good. Casual.” ― Daniel Suarez, Daemon

While Daemon was published in 2009 it was a new book and author for me when I read it last November as part of a reading and discussion class on Science Fiction as part of the Basic Program of Liberal Education at The University of Chicago. We had read mostly classic Science Fiction stories and two earlier novels by Arthur C. Clarke and Frank Herbert, so Daniel Suarez was in rarefied company when we turned to his novel as the last work on the syllabus. We were not disappointed for his techno-thriller style of Science Fiction was, in both its imaginative content and suspense, worthy of inclusion with most of the classics.
In Daemon, a software tycoon and game designer named Matthew Sobol is dying. Sobol writes a program called the Daemon that scans news sites on the web for stories about his death. When the Daemon detects (via the web) that Sobol has died, it springs into action.
All aficionados of speculative fiction should enjoy Daemon, but computer science and high-tech lovers will especially enjoy how plausible some of the ideas are. For example, the Daemon initially stays below the radar of the government by recruiting from within a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), which skews toward a younger demographic and not older FBI agents. The ideas presented build on the current cutting edge of information science and generally seem plausible. As with much speculative fiction there may be a few gaps in the science but the suspense and brilliant action scenes engage the reader and make up for any rough edges. The overall consensus of the class and my own reading judgement was positive and left many of us looking forward to the continuation of the story in Suarez's more recent novel. Freedom.





Continuing the story he started in Daemon Daniel Suarez has written an even better novel of the near future. In a Science Fiction techno-thriller he highlights some of the potential dangers and risks involved in the mix of economic dysfunction and evolving technology that we already are experiencing. Imagining a future that moves in a dystopian direction Suarez creates some of the most vivid good and bad characters to battle with the aid of the next generation of cyber-technology.
Freedom continues the world of Daemon, and suspense builds as it becomes less clear as to the true nature of the Daemon; which players are the most ruthless in changing the world becomes an issue that keeps you on the proverbial edge of your seat. Freedom pushes the concepts of Daemon further into a future in which civilization itself seems to be dissolving with changes that bring its viability into question: members of the guerrilla resistance fight against copyrighted DNA and for sustainable next-generation energy. They also share a private augmented reality. The new members of the “darknet” also share an interesting reputation system and the result of it all is worth the reading trip. Suarez is an author with an imagination that will challenge even veteran readers of speculative literature.


Daemon & Freedom by Daniel Suarez.  

Jane Austen in the Information Age

Technology and Jane Austen

“It is only a novel... or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language” 

― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

A lecture with the title, "Sense and Sensibility in the Age of Technology: Will Jane Austen survive?", suggests to me that I will be treated to a discussion of the latest ways that Jane Austen's novels have been morphed into electronic tidbits for our information age.  I remembered that in Jane Austen's day information was sent by letters, but this lecture informed us about the technology of our day - the internet and what changes that technology has spawned. 
The topic was presented yesterday by the lucid lecturer on Austen and the humanities, Elisabeth Lenckos - Instructor in the Basic Program of Liberal Education for Adults at the University of Chicago,  and I was not disappointed in the result of her presentation.  In the introduction to the topic she surveyed the changes wrought by technological progress in recent years including the growth of the internet and its impact on the creative urges of human beings as they have progressed beyond the age of homo ludens.  The body of the lecture featured a brilliant answer to the questions of the title with variations on the theme of technology and its impact on our reading of Jane Austen. The lecture quickly provided the answer that most attendees were no doubt expecting to the titular question.  It was a resounding yes.  But the answer only led to further questions about how and why this must be true.  Rather than relying simply on the the beautiful and economic prose style of Miss Austen, which is without doubt part of the answer, Ms. Lenckos turned to the philosophical foundations of Austen's novels.  She identified empiricism as evidenced by the importance of experience and observation in Austen's work along side rationalism as evidenced by the intuitive nature of the important characters.  The ability of "good" people in the novels (Elizabeth Bennet or Elinor Dashwood) to identify and understand the "frauds" (George Wickham or John Willoughby) was possible because they would observe and learn from their experience.  
I especially appreciated the lecturer's take on what readers may learn from Austen's novels;  that is the strength that comes from personal observation, independence of thought demonstrated by the characters, and the importance of reliance on informed intuition. The potential of these and the many examples from the novels on future human relationships is reason enough for the continued popularity of Austen's novels.  Finally the lecturer suggested that Jane Austen would likely embrace modern technology and engage in self-publication.  No matter how much our world is changed by the information age and the pervasive impact of modern technology classic texts which display universal truths such as we find in the novels of Jane Austen will continue to delight and inform readers everywhere.