Download or read book The Lever of Riches written by Joel Mokyr and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1992-04-09 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a world of supercomputers, genetic engineering, and fiber optics, technological creativity is ever more the key to economic success. But why are some nations more creative than others, and why do some highly innovative societies--such as ancient China, or Britain in the industrial revolution--pass into stagnation? Beginning with a fascinating, concise history of technological progress, Mokyr sets the background for his analysis by tracing the major inventions and innovations that have transformed society since ancient Greece and Rome. What emerges from this survey is often surprising: the classical world, for instance, was largely barren of new technology, the relatively backward society of medieval Europe bristled with inventions, and the period between the Reformation and the Industrial Revolution was one of slow and unspectacular progress in technology, despite the tumultuous developments associated with the Voyages of Discovery and the Scientific Revolution. What were the causes of technological creativity? Mokyr distinguishes between the relationship of inventors and their physical environment--which determined their willingness to challenge nature--and the social environment, which determined the openness to new ideas. He discusses a long list of such factors, showing how they interact to help or hinder a nation's creativity, and then illustrates them by a number of detailed comparative studies, examining the differences between Europe and China, between classical antiquity and medieval Europe, and between Britain and the rest of Europe during the industrial revolution. He examines such aspects as the role of the state (the Chinese gave up a millennium-wide lead in shipping to the Europeans, for example, when an Emperor banned large ocean-going vessels), the impact of science, as well as religion, politics, and even nutrition. He questions the importance of such commonly-cited factors as the spill-over benefits of war, the abundance of natural resources, life expectancy, and labor costs. Today, an ever greater number of industrial economies are competing in the global market, locked in a struggle that revolves around technological ingenuity. The Lever of Riches, with its keen analysis derived from a sweeping survey of creativity throughout history, offers telling insights into the question of how Western economies can maintain, and developing nations can unlock, their creative potential.

Download or read book Cumulated Index to the Books written by and published by . This book was released on 1949 with total page 1110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A world list of books in the English language.

Download or read book A Blessed Company written by John K. Nelson and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2003-01-14 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, John Nelson reconstructs everyday Anglican religious practice and experience in Virginia from the end of the seventeenth century to the start of the American Revolution. Challenging previous characterizations of the colonial Anglican establishment as weak, he reveals the fundamental role the church played in the political, social, and economic as well as the spiritual lives of its parishioners. Drawing on extensive research in parish and county records and other primary sources, Nelson describes Anglican Virginia's parish system, its parsons, its rituals of worship and rites of passage, and its parishioners' varied relationships to the church. All colonial Virginians--men and women, rich and poor, young and old, planters and merchants, servants and slaves, dissenters and freethinkers--belonged to a parish. As such, they were subject to its levies, its authority over marriage, and other social and economic dictates. In addition to its religious functions, the parish provided essential care for the poor, collaborated with the courts to handle civil disputes, and exerted its influence over many other aspects of community life. A Blessed Company demonstrates that, by creatively adapting Anglican parish organization and the language, forms, and modes of Anglican spirituality to the Chesapeake's distinctive environmental and human conditions, colonial Virginians sustained a remarkably effective and faithful Anglican church in the Old Dominion.

Download or read book The Outlook written by Lyman Abbott and published by . This book was released on 1927 with total page 598 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Colonial and State Political History of Hertford County N C written by Benjamin Brodie Winborne and published by . This book was released on 1906 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Outlook and Independent written by and published by . This book was released on 1923 with total page 754 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book North Carolina Education written by and published by . This book was released on 1916 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Christian Advocate written by and published by . This book was released on 1918 with total page 782 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Genealogical Helper written by and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 794 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book New Outlook written by and published by . This book was released on 1917 with total page 746 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Outlook written by and published by . This book was released on 1927 with total page 596 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book American Book Publishing Record written by and published by . This book was released on 2000-07 with total page 1872 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book History of Edgecombe County North Carolina written by Joseph Kelly Turner and published by . This book was released on 1920 with total page 568 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections written by and published by . This book was released on 1962 with total page 552 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on reports from American repositories of manuscripts.

Download or read book The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature written by William L. Andrews and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2001-02-15 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A breathtaking achievement, this Concise Companion is a suitable crown to the astonishing production in African American literature and criticism that has swept over American literary studies in the last two decades. It offers an enormous range of writers-from Sojourner Truth to Frederick Douglass, from Zora Neale Hurston to Ralph Ellison, and from Toni Morrison to August Wilson. It contains entries on major works (including synopses of novels), such as Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Richard Wright's Native Son, and Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun. It also incorporates information on literary characters such as Bigger Thomas, Coffin Ed Johnson, Kunta Kinte, Sula Peace, as well as on character types such as Aunt Jemima, Brer Rabbit, John Henry, Stackolee, and the trickster. Icons of black culture are addressed, including vivid details about the lives of Muhammad Ali, John Coltrane, Marcus Garvey, Jackie Robinson, John Brown, and Harriet Tubman. Here, too, are general articles on poetry, fiction, and drama; on autobiography, slave narratives, Sunday School literature, and oratory; as well as on a wide spectrum of related topics. Compact yet thorough, this handy volume gathers works from a vast array of sources--from the black periodical press to women's clubs--making it one of the most substantial guides available on the growing, exciting world of African American literature.

Download or read book North Carolina Schools and Academies 1790 1840 written by Charles Lee Coon and published by . This book was released on 1915 with total page 896 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book TAR HEEL WAR RECORD written by J. R. GRAHAM and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: