In this reading, Reynolds talks about Water power and its role in the industrial revolution, starting in medieval times. He starts out by describing different rudimentary water wheels, for example vertical undershot wheels, vertical overshot wheels, and horizontal wheels. Although these wheels were developed far before medieval times; they didn’t become widely used until the …
Continue reading “Summary of Reynolds’ “Medieval Roots of the Industrial Revolution””
The common consensus is that the Industrial Revolution began when steam power suddenly began to replace manual labor at the end of the 18th century and beginning of the 19th century. However, in Reynolds’ article titled Medieval Roots of the Industrial … Continue reading →
Vincent,
I really enjoyed reading your blog. The Roman military is truly fascinating. Reading the article you provided was fascinating. It blows my mind how organized and powerful the Roman military was. It’s awesome that we are able to know so many small details like Pyrric War.
Nice post! I really like the quote and images; it makes the post seem more thought out and personal than a just a summary. I don’t agree with Geis’ classification of “failures.” These technologies were impressive for the time period, and many are still impressive today. However, I like the tie in of how the technologies were and still are very useful, despite their downfalls.
Chris,
This is a good and easy to follow summary of the Carlson article. I like that you incorporated that many Roman technologies are in use today. I personally feel that these ancient technologies seem more impressive to readers when they can be rela…
The information of voice of your article made it very interesting to read. I believe you provided a good description of the rise of Rome. However, the article is just a timeline. I do wish you went a little more into details about how some of the technologies (especially their best ones) were developed. It would’ve also been interesting to read about the fall of Rome, seems like you left a cliffhanger. But I found two good sites that explain the fall of Rome:
http://www.ushistory.org/civ/6f.asp
https://www.ancient.eu/article/835/fall-of-the-western-roman-empire/
The Ancient societies of Greece and Rome are well revered for their innovations and governmental achievements. The most prominent contribution, and perhaps the most well-known aspect of these societies, being the architectural developments made during their time. Greece relied heavily on the post and lintel system, where large horizontal structures are held up by vertical…
I really liked how you explained your topic. Your tone and writing style made it a pleasure to read and easy to follow. Your topic is actually pretty interesting too– previously, I had just assumed that the Romans only used aquaducts, but the fact that they also built a dam, used chain of pots, and built a noria are also super interesting because they are less well-known. However, you didn’t really give much description for the noria or chain of pots.
I found a decent diagram for the chain of pots, also called a chain pump: http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/28000/28029/chain-pump_28029.htm.
When I was looking that up, I also found a site with a lot of brief descriptions of technology relating to this topic. One of the technologies listed is the noria, so I could see how that worked.
Here’s the link to it: http://www.romanaqueducts.info/technicalintro/waterlifting.htm
Overall, I did like your article, but it was missing some the descriptions for some very interesting devices.
I liked that you mentioned a relatively new modern currency (Bitcoin) so that you can make a modern connection at the beginning. It helps show that your topic is not just something in the past– it is very much still relevant to understand why and how currency is created today.
Your topic reminded me of this super fun video series on the history of paper money that I watched a while ago. Although it’s a little more limited in scope since it only talks about paper currency, it goes very in depth in a simple and enjoyable format: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nZkP2b-4vo&list=PLhyKYa0YJ_5CL-krstYn532QY1Ayo27s1.
Nice summary! My favorite part about your summary is how you split up and talked about each of the Roman technology and gave reasons as to why the Romans improved the technology or how well made and advanced it was. I also liked how you told us how much ancient Roman technology still impacts us today, for example the roads, they were made a long time ago yet they are still being “used” (the foundation of the roads) today.
If you want to learn more about ancient Rome engineering you can click on the link below and watch. This video gives you a very good look at their engineering, while also still telling you about the history. (1 hour and 33 minutes long)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5obOUDyQ5s
If you want to learn more about the roads that were built click on the link below. (42 minutes long)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=15&v=l-dKhm-hK74