The Ancient Engineers

The Ancient Engineers By L. SpragueDeCamp

ISBN 0345320298 Traces man's progress not through the Historians' darlings, the political leaders, but through those actually responsible for progress - the inventors. Probably the most accessible and stimulating history of the world ever written. Also, paradoxically, the UnaBomber's favourite book.

Not certain I want to second the UnaBomber, but this is an extremely fine book. Its thesis is that history emerges from technology; that changes in social behaviors on large scales are predominantly caused neither by charismatic figures nor cultural currents, but by the dissemination of new knowledge and the invention of new machines. If the book has a drawback, it's only that it leaves the subject before properly treating the IndustrialRevolution or the astonishing machines invented in the first half of the 20th century. --PeterMerel

Granted, it's been almost twenty years since I read the book, but I don't recall it advocating any particular motivation for social behaviour. Probably because the book doesn't even mention social behaviour. It's merely a particularly fine and engaging description of the history and evolution of technology, that's all.

Books that actually try to explain the evolution of social behaviour include Future Shock by Alvin Toffler, OriginOfConsciousness by JulianJaynes and pretty much anything in PsychoHistory. -- rk

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