I'd suggest taking a look at Robert Gordon's The Rise and Fall of American Growth. Gordon's coverage of past technology and both the mode and extent of impacts, and of recent developments, including information technology medicine, and other areas, is sobering.
And that's despite disagreeing with Gordon fairly strongly in a number of other areas.
Vaclav Smil and Manfred Weissenbacher both have excellent books describing the impacts of technolgy, and especially energy, on history. I strongly suspect that's the most significant component.
Gordon's book is part of a larger series much of which addresses the question of why concerning the Industrial Revolution and the absolutely unprecedented growth of the past 250 years or so, much of that occurring only in the 20th century. It's hardly the only treatment of that phenomenon, but I do agree with Gordon, and others, that it's perhaps the most pressing question, still unanswered, of economics.
And that's despite disagreeing with Gordon fairly strongly in a number of other areas.
Vaclav Smil and Manfred Weissenbacher both have excellent books describing the impacts of technolgy, and especially energy, on history. I strongly suspect that's the most significant component.
Gordon's book is part of a larger series much of which addresses the question of why concerning the Industrial Revolution and the absolutely unprecedented growth of the past 250 years or so, much of that occurring only in the 20th century. It's hardly the only treatment of that phenomenon, but I do agree with Gordon, and others, that it's perhaps the most pressing question, still unanswered, of economics.