The Renaissance and Beyond

As noted, by 1500 Europe was no longer the technological backwater it had been in 900 or the upstart imitator of 1200. It is clear that Europe owed China a great deal, as Joseph Needham has tirelessly argued. ²⁶ Yet in the two centuries before 1500, Europe's technological creativity had become increasingly original. In the later Middle Ages Chinese technology had become in Landes's phrase, a “magnificent dead end.” After 1500 China ceases to be of much interest to the historian of technology. Its use of iron and water power did not lead to a Chinese Manchester any more than their knowledge of printing led to a massive outpouring or printed books in China or than Su Sung's famous water clock led to a large clock to be erected in the center of every town in China. ²⁷