B. J. G. Van Der Kooij

Man's ability to innovate fuels technological development, and thus economic and social progress. The last decades have seen enormous changes to our world, including great strides in our communication infrastructure, fuelled by the internet and the smart phone. With the burgeoning of social media, electronic banking, as well as cyber warfare, modern society faces immense and often disruptive changes in the fast-moving Age of Innovation.Author B. J. G. van der Kooij delves in this second volume of his History of Innovation into historic times taking readers on a tour from the Axial Revolution through the Renaissance Revolution, the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment up to the Industrial Revolution. Analyzing the Affairs of Man in the themes Climate, Technology, Religion and Society, he unravels the mechanisms behind Change & Novelty. Starting with how climate change was dominating human life in historic Greek, Roman and Medieval times, he takes the reader from the Iron Revolution to the eras of the Practical and Mechanical Arts. Analyzing how the monotheistic religions like Christianity ruling human affairs emerged in the Religious Revolution, he explores the Roman civilization, its growth and collapse. Delving into innovations of Medieval times up to the era of Renaissance, he explores times that saw evolutions and revolutions, advancing with the transfer of wealth, power and knowledge. Illustrating how the cognitive ability of curiosity, ingenuity and creativity shaped Homo Inventicus and his Discovery of Innovation. This in-depth look at a past era's penchant for modernization, may help us understand how Change and Novelty ruled our history, and will guide our future.

Man's ability to innovate fuels technological development, and thus economic and social progress. The last decades have seen enormous changes to our world, including great strides in our communication infrastructure, fuelled by the internet and the smart phone. With the burgeoning of social media, electronic banking, as well as cyber warfare, modern society faces immense and often disruptive changes in the fast-moving Age of Innovation.In a work of splendid scholarship, author B.J.G. Van der Kooij delves, in his eighth book, into the History of Innovation, starting in ancient times. Taking his readers on a tour, from the Neolithic Revolution, through the Urban, to the Axial Revolution, he analyses the Affairs of Man along the themes Climate, Technology, Religion and Society. Indeed Climate Change played a major role, even thousands of years ago and the author takes us through the stone, bone and ceramic technologies, up to the Iron Revolution.From the ancient spirits of the natural world that became the polytheistic religions ruling human affairs, he explores the ancient civilisations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and Rome, up to the advent of Christ. These times saw technological evolution and revolution, advancing with transfer of wealth, knowledge and power; times that saw the dawn of civilisation as we know it. Illustrating how the cognitive ability of curiosity, ingenuity and creativity shaped Homo creatives, this thought-provoking study of the history and impact of innovation on civilisations, helps us to understand how Change and Novelty ruled our past, and will guide our future.

The Industrial Revolution is one of the most important periods of change in world history. It ushered in the modern age of innovation. In Context for Innovation, author B. J. G. van der Kooij continues his Invention Series. The first books in the series detail the invention of the steam engine, electric motor and dynamo, telegraph, telephone, electric light, and wireless communication. Now Van der Kooij steps back and looks at the bigger picture.He details the social, economic, and political conditions that led to this period of rapid industrialization. He tackles such issues as the English Revolution, the rise of the Anglican Church, the declining absolute monarchy and rising parliamentary sovereignty, and the transition of the former agricultural English society into the British Empire of the nineteenth century. He shows how technological innovation was both the cause of social and political changes and the result of socio-political shifts. That motor of innovation was fueled by the transfer of wealth, power, and of knowhow and knowledge over centuries.Context for Innovation focuses on innovations in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. Through multi-dimensional analysis, readers will gain an understanding of the complex foundations of innovation in our modern society. His work provides an invaluable background on this remarkable age of industrialization.

We forget that for most of history, there was little to be done but sleep once the sun disappeared. Today, our lives run on electrical power, and people are not constrained any more by nature's schedule. What was once revolutionary has become an ordinary necessity. But humans did not harness electricity overnight. Many of the nineteenth century's brightest minds carved a winding path from idea to reality out of the social and economic realities of the day: wars, revolutions, scientific research, and cultural awakenings. Thomas Edison gets deserved credit for inventing the incandescent lamp, but without the research of earlier European scientists and engineers such as Vasily Petrov, Humphry Davy, and Pavel Yablochkov, Edison's lamp might never have lit. With his triumph, electricity began to exert its power over the course of history. As part of a series of extensive historical case studies on technical innovations, B. J. G. van der Kooij's The Invention of the Electric Light presents a comprehensive look at a profound invention that has become essential to modern life. He goes to great lengths to explain how this technological development occurred in several "clusters of innovations." Through micro-level vignettes of individual scientists and inventors, and macro-level discussions of nineteenth-century socioeconomic and political realities, van der Kooij reminds us that human brilliance never occurs in vacuum.

B.J.G. van der Kooij continues his exploration of the history of technological innovation, taking readers on an amazing, in-depth journey and examination of the social climate of the times, the lives of innovators, emergent technologies, and their larger impacts. In the early nineteenth century, Jacobi's boat experiment in St. Petersburg and Page's electric locomotive on the Washington and Baltimore Railroad heralded the use of DC electric motors. In the 1850s, Gramme, Edison, and Brush developed early direct current generators, followed by the creation of self-exciting dynamos by Wheatstone, Varley, and Siemens that would make inventions such as incandescent lamps and household appliances possible, changing daily life forever. A third major step occurred in the 1880s, when the work of Nikola Tesla in the United States and Mikhail Osipovich Dolivo-Dobrowolsky in Germany brought about the AC induction electromotor. After the "Battle of the Currents" between Edison's DC system and Westinghouse's AC system, alternating current would develop into the major system that economic life depends on today. The Invention of the Electromotive Engine gives readers insightful perspectives on the mechanisms behind the Second Industrial Revolution, the foundation for modern society.