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This book offers a comprehensive history of technology-spanning not only the vast sweep of time suggested by its title, but also the breadth of human civilization across the globe. Although our lives have become increasingly dependent on technology, its history remains surprisingly little known.

Rather than presenting mathematical formulas or technical detail, the book focuses on facts, stories, and reflections that often lie beyond common knowledge. Its aim is to reveal unexpected connections, stimulate critical thought, and illuminate the often hidden interactions between technological innovation and the political, economic, cultural, and religious forces that have shaped human societies.

Covering the major technological developments from prehistory to the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, this first volume explores how innovations emerged, spread, and evolved. It examines why some technologies transformed the world while others disappeared, how different civilizations adopted similar inventions in different ways, and why identical technologies often produced profoundly different consequences across places and periods.

Looking ahead, the book also reflects on the technologies that appear most promising today-while reminding us that every technological advance carries both opportunities and risks. Since the first chipped flint could serve either to secure food or to take a human life, technology has remained neither inherently good nor evil. Two million years later, that fundamental dilemma is unchanged. Its consequences still depend on the choices of those who create and use it.