The Encounter with the New Revisited

May/June 2008 Historically Speaking 23 plus resources and a division of labor. Larger populations , more ideas, and new social structures increased die variety of information accumulated and retained within human societies. Increasingly, innovation took social as well as ecological or technological forms. How could one maintain order and cohesion in communities of many diousands of people? How could one organize the exchange of goods within such communities? States, organized religions, armies, and markets were among the innovations that emerged in response to these challenges. Still, by modern standards, rates of innovation remained slow. As Malthus pointed out, innovation could never quite keep up with population growth. A constant trickle of innovations aUowed populations to grow and let minorities enjoy high material living standards. Yet innovation was too slow to raise living standards more generally or to prevent periodic "Malthusian" collapses. In the modern era the pace of innovation has accelerated once more. Improved systems of communication mean that the human stock of knowledge is now shared globally. So, once again, there has been a sharp increase in the variety of ideas available for selection. But now, for the first time, social structures have emerged within increasingly commercialized economies that encourage a more active search for innovations, rather than the passive, trial-anderror methods that had dominated innovation for most of human history. The active, self-conscious seeking out of innovation is one of the defining features of the modern era of human history and is closely related to our capacity to wonder at, and admire , innovation. Now, for the first time in human history, innovation is rapid enough to allow for a substantial rise in material living standards for an increasing number of humans. Though the limits of the achievement are all too apparent, this change nevertheless marks a remarkable transformation in human history. Although innovation is a characteristic of all living species, sustainedinnovation is unique to our own species. It arises from our capacity for collective learning, and it explains why humans are the only species on Earth with a history of sustained change. The pace of innovation has accelerated in human history. Today, we observe the results of this speed up. We may also be starting to see its dangers. If, in the long run, innovation always implies an increasing capacity to mobilize the energy and resources of the biosphere, then die frantic pace of innovation today clearly implies that one species, our own, is mobilizing more and more of the Earth's resources. Sometime in the 20th century that process began to transform the entire biosphere in dangerous and unpredictable ways. Innovation had turned into hyperinnovation . David Christian isprofessor of history atSan Diego State University. His most recent book is Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History (University of California Press, 2004), which in 2005 was awardedthe WorldHistory Association'spritefor the best book in world historypublished in 2004. ' Joel Mokyr, The Leverof Riches: TechnologicalCreativity andEconomic Progress (Oxford University Press, 1990), 273: "Economists have long recognized that the traditional tools of economic theory pivoting on the concept of equilibrium are not suitable to the analysis of technological change. It is not clear, however, what can serve as an alternative." Though he might not agree with all the ideas in this paper, I would like to thankJoel Mokyr for some helpful suggestions about further reading on the subject of evolution and innovation. 2 Henry Plotkin, The Imagined WorldMade Real: Towards a Natural Science of Culture (Rutgers University Press, 2002), 131. 1 Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, ed. J.W. Burrow (Penguin, 1987), 459. ' I have explored the idea of collective learning in David Christian , Maps of Time:An Introduction to Big History (University of California Press, 2004). s Clive Gamble, Timewalkers: The Prehistory of Global Colonisation (Penguin, 1995), 120. The Encounter with the New Revisited Theodore K. Rabb My brief sketch of the different responses to the new at various times and places in European history —prepared for a National Council for History Education meeting that took as its theme "The Encounter with the New"— has prompted some very interesting elaborations of the subject by Riccardo Duchesne and David Christian . They...