Reviewed by:

• Fifty Years of Medieval Technology and Social Change: AVISTA Studies in the History of Medieval Technology, Science, and Art ed. by Steven A. Walton
• Adam Lucas (bio)

Lynn White Jr. was a founding member of the Society for the History of Technology, and a renowned professional historian of technology, working from the 1940s to the 1970s. His short but influential book, Medieval Technology and Social Change (1962), sparked enormous interest in the contributions of the Middle Ages to western technological development and continues to exercise the minds of historians to this day.

This homage to White explores how Medieval Technology and Social Change (MTSC) and White's oeuvre in general contribute to various strands of scholarship in history and several other humanities and social science disciplines. Edited by Steven A. Walton, the book is partially the outcome of sessions held at the Kalamazoo International Congress on Medieval Studies and the Leeds International Medieval Congress in 2012 to celebrate MTSC's semicentennial. It also contains papers exploring themes first articulated by White on medieval technology as well as rural and environmental studies.

Walton contributes both the introductory essay and a chapter on White's central claims in MTSC. The introduction discusses White's mixed scholarly legacy, revealing that American historians of technology have generally been far more positive in their assessments than scholars from other countries and research fields. Walton sifts through the evidence that has emerged subsequent to the book's publication, which both supports and undermines White's claims. His observation regarding Thomas Kuhn's failure to initiate a new field of study would, however, be news to post-Kuhnian historians of science and exponents of the sociology of scientific knowledge! The introduction concludes with a comprehensive bibliography of White's published work. Walton's second essay reviews how MTSC was received by historians of various persuasions; how it was used in teaching; and to what extent the influence of the book and interest in the history of medieval technology over the last five decades are revealed by sales records, Google n-grams, and international bibliographies.

Covering similar ground as Walton, B. B. Price's paper is an overview of how well the work of White, Lewis Mumford, and Jean Gimpel—described as three "giants" in the history of technology—has withstood subsequent critique and continues to be used pedagogically. The paper brings together intriguing biographical details about their various influences and scholarly networks. That said, Price makes some uncharitable observations about Michael J. T. Lewis's work on the wheelbarrow, misinterprets John Langdon's work on medieval milling, and is overly credulous of Mum-ford's and White's claims that exploitative attitudes to nature emerged in the second half of the Middle Ages. [End Page 1214]

The influence and reception of MTSC and White's famous paper, "The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis" (1967) are the focus of Elspeth Whitney's incisive overview. Whitney explains how "Roots" has been variously received by scholars in ecotheology, ecocriticism, environmental ethics, and environmental history. Substantial evidence informs her conclusion that White was a Christian determinist. She also details the puzzling neglect by environmental historians of the medieval period and its contribution to understanding contemporary attitudes toward nature.

George Brooks comprehensively reviews White's arguments regarding the supposed medieval invention of the crank, and the evidence following the publication of his views in MTSC. A standout is Brooks's discussion of the use of hand cranks in Hellenic theatrical devices.

C. R. J. Currie's paper on the elements of medieval clock design and construction is technically detailed, but the author does not connect his discussion to the book's overall themes. The same applies to the book's final two chapters, in which Constance Berman analyzes manuscript evidence of Cistercian nunneries' land acquisitions and forest management practices in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century northern France, and Chantal Camenisch discusses the causes of fifteenth-century subsistence crises in the Burgundian Low Countries. While both chapters are well written and interesting...

审核人：

• 中世纪技术和社会变革五十年：中世纪技术，科学和艺术史中的AVISTA研究ed。史蒂文·沃尔顿（Steven A.Walton）
• 亚当·卢卡斯（生物）

小林恩（Lynn White Jr.）是技术史学会的创始成员，并且是著名的专业技术史学家，从1940年代到1970年代工作。他的简短但有影响力的书《中世纪技术与社会变革》（1962年）引起了人们对中世纪对西方技术发展的贡献的浓厚兴趣，并一直活跃到今天的历史学家们。

对怀特的敬意探讨了中世纪技术和社会变革（MTSC）和怀特的作品对历史以及其他一些人文学科和社会科学学科的学术贡献。该书由史蒂芬·沃尔顿（Steven A. Walton）编辑，部分是2012年在卡拉马祖国际中世纪研究大会和利兹国际中世纪大会上举行的庆祝MTSC成立五十周年的会议成果。它还包含一些论文，探讨怀特首先提出的有关中世纪技术以及农村和环境研究的主题。

沃尔顿既提供介绍性论文，又提供有关怀特在MTSC中的核心主张的章节。引言讨论了怀特的混合学术遗产，揭示了美国技术史学家通常对他们的评估比来自其他国家和研究领域的学者更为积极。沃尔顿仔细研究了该书出版后出现的证据，该证据支持并破坏了怀特的主张。然而，他对托马斯·库恩（Thomas Kuhn）未能启动新的研究领域的观察，对于后库恩时代的科学史学家和科学知识社会学的倡导者而言，将是新闻！引言以怀特发表的著作的综合书目作为结尾。沃尔顿 第二篇文章回顾了各种说服力的历史学家如何接受MTSC；教学中如何使用它；销售记录，Google n-gram和国际参考书目揭示了这本书和兴趣在过去五年中对中世纪技术历史的影响程度。

BB Price的论文涵盖了与沃尔顿相似的领域，概述了怀特，刘易斯·芒福德和让·金普尔（在技术史上被描述为三个“巨人”）的工作经受住了后来的批评，并继续用于教学法。本文汇集了有关其各种影响力和学术网络的有趣传记资料。也就是说，普莱斯对迈克尔·J·T·刘易斯在独轮车上的工作发表了一些不诚实的看法，曲解了约翰·兰登（John Langdon）在中世纪碾磨方面的工作，并且过于轻视了芒福德和怀特的说法，即中世纪后半叶出现了对自然的剥削态度。 。[结束页1214]

MTSC和怀特着名的论文《我们的生态危机的历史根源》（1967）的影响和接受是Elspeth Whitney精辟概述的重点。惠特尼（Whitney）解释了生态学，生态批评，环境伦理和环境历史方面的学者如何获得“根源”。大量证据表明她的结论是怀特是基督教的决定论者。她还详细介绍了环境历史学家对中世纪时期的令人困惑的忽视，以及它对理解当代对自然的态度的贡献。

乔治·布鲁克斯（George Brooks）全面回顾了怀特（White）关于所谓的中世纪曲柄发明的论点，以及他在MTSC中发表观点之后的证据。布鲁克斯（Brooks）对在希腊戏剧设备中使用手摇曲柄的讨论是一个突出的例子。

CRJ Currie关于中世纪钟表设计和构造要素的论文在技术上较为详尽，但作者并未将其讨论与本书的整体主题联系起来。这本书的最后两章也是如此，其中康斯坦斯·伯曼（Constance Berman）分析了13世纪和14世纪法国北部的西多会修女的土地收购和森林管理实践的手稿证据，而尚塔尔·卡梅尼奇（Chantal Camenisch）则讨论了15世纪法国生存危机的原因。勃艮第低地国家。虽然这两章都写得很好并且很有趣...