Technology, knowledge, and manufacturing before the Industrial Revolution
Production and Operations Management · 2022 · Volume 31 · Issue 12
Abstract
Long-term vision depends on history, and on history alone. Scholarship in technology, manufacturing, and operations management is incomplete without a knowledge of history. In chronicling the history of technology, knowledge, and manufacturing, we have traced the remarkable continuity in the evolution of humans fromhomininstohomo sapiens, in the migration ofhomo sapiensfrom Africa to the furthest reaches of the world, and in the rise of civilizations and industrialization driven by agriculture surplus. Technology, knowledge, and manufacturing did not and do not exist in isolation and many disciplines have addressed them in the literature. Here, we concern ourselves with human history until 1760, roughly when the Industrial Revolution began. Our companion paper, Singhal and Singhal (2022; Technology and manufacturing-and-service operations 1760–1945.Production and Operations Management, this issue), explores the history of technology and manufacturing-and-service operations since the Industrial Revolution.
Keywords
history, Industrial Revolution, manufacturing, technology
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