Quote:
Originally Posted by maximara
Several things here
The first known Encyclopedia was Natural History and dates from c77 CE. It consisted of 37 chapters spread over 10 books.
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Yes, but Pliny is almost useless at learning any practical craft. Its a book of "cool facts about nature from my library." Diderot's
Encyclopédie is a very different project, designed to preserve and spread the knowledge of Enlightenment France, including things which had previously never been written. It is one branch of a project which started to take shape in the 17th and 18th centuries which includes things like patent law, professional journals, agricultural fairs, etc. and argued that the kind of knowledge which experts had traditionally hoarded should be open to all in order to further progress.
One cool thing is that this project is still ongoing! It has won many battles over the past 300 years, but there are still trade secrets and very expensive books and datasets and long copyright terms. Arguments about "security through obscurity" and how to distribute academic research are just the latest skirmishes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by maximara
Latin had been standardized 75 BCE and when the Western Roman empire fell apart it became the defacto international language of what had been the Western Roman empire.
Because the Muslim world, India, and China didn't have this common language cultural exchange between their cultures and the old Western Roman Empire was limited.
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Things were translated when enough people wanted them to be (and most technical texts had been in Greek anyways) but writing had a very small role in the spread of technology even inside one language region. As I said, no early printed book describing how to make armour has left any trace on the present, but there is lots of evidence for a town which wanted to develop its armour industry luring journeymen and masters from a town with a strong industry.