Scientific progress and technological development play star roles in the master narrative of “the rise of the West.” The emergence of capitalist social formations and Enlightenment thought in Europe coincided with an unprecedented, exponential phase of growth in scientific knowledge and in technical creativity and expertise. How these elements interacted to produce the peculiarly European “miracle” is a puzzle that continues to preoccupy the authors of comparative, grand-sweep history of technology and science. Conversely, the failure to generate a similar miracle has largely dictated the terms of history of science and technology as it is practiced in and on China. But is explanation of failure the most we can get out of the history of non-Western technology, or can we reformulate our enquiries along more rewarding lines? If the task of the historian is to recreate worlds we have lost, then surely it is more helpful to reflect carefully on what did happen in these worlds, than to ask why something did not happen that did happen elsewhere.

The social theory of the capitalist era treats technology as one of the most significant of human activities. Modern technology, most obviously perhaps in the form of industrial machinery design, incorporates productivity-raising knowledge and is thus the very embodiment of capitalist rationality.