ABSTRACT
The central problem confronting the student of the history of technology is that of bewildering diversity. Even if technology is divided into a few major divisions such as, for example, building and civil engineering, textiles, power, transport, communications and hand and machine tools, it is at once apparent that each division includes a huge number of individual inventions and developments all of which have, apparently, claims to be included in the scope of the history of technology. However the problem is not quite so intractable as it appears at first sight. Selection, based on value judgments, is an essential feature of all acknowledged branches of learning and if the history of technology appears to be an exception this must be because it is of very recent origin, considered as a part of academic history. Technology in history is as much a matter of ideas and of science as it is of economic institutions and individual artifacts.
