Griechische Mechanik und antike Gesellschaft

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 935 shrift to the resiliency of ties to the ancien régime. Finally, McClellan’s comment that the Enlightenment simply did not occur in Saint Domingue requires further elaboration if we are to come to terms with the ambiguous legacy of the Enlightenment on science and with the perplexing question raised by McClellan’s work: is a commitment to social utility incompatible with human freedom? Lindsay Wilson Dr. Wilson teaches in the Department of History at Colby College and is the author of Women and Medicine in the French Enlightenment: The Debate over Maladies des Femmes (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993). Griechische Mechanik und antike Gesellschaft: Studien zur staatlichen Forderung einer technischen Wissenschaft. By Astrid Schiirmann. Stutt­ gart: Franz Steiner, 1991. Pp. 348; illustrations, notes, bibliography, indexes. DM 88.00 (paper). This study of Greek mechanical thought in the context of ancient society is an important work of scholarship. A revision of a 1989 dissertation completed at the Freie Universitat Berlin, it is a notable achievement both in its skilled use of widely scattered sources and in its comprehensive treatment of the subject. Astrid Schurmann rejects two familiar approaches to ancient Greek mechanics. The first is one that treats technology in isolation from its social and intellectual moorings. The second views ancient technology from a post—Industrial Revolution perspective. An example of the latter involves the long-debated “issue” of technical progress in antiquity. Schurmann notes that the problem has been formulated from a modern point of view that ignores the fundamentally agrarian nature of all ancient societies. Schurmann begins her study with an account of the Museum and Library of Alexandria in its first hundred years, emphasizing its importance as a state institution that promoted numerous areas of knowledge including the mechanical sciences. Not only was the great size of the institution something novel, it also represented a qualitative development in the history of knowledge. Unlike its predecessors, such as the Platonic Academy and Aristotle’s Peripatos, it was the product of systematic and ongoing state support. Moreover, its subject areas were greatly expanded over those of earlier institutions and included both the medical and mechanical arts. Schtirmann’s careful contextualism is evident in her account of the development of mechanike techne as a science founded by Archytos of Tarentium in the first half of the 4th century b.c. She traces the history of the Greek words mechanike and techne, carefully distinguish­ ing their diverse meanings. Through an analysis of Philo of Byzan­ 936 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE tium and Hero’s Pneumática as well as other sources, she analyzes the conceptual development of the discipline as a technical science for the improvement of human life. The main body of the work consists of systematic overviews of seven areas in which mechanical knowledge was fundamentally important. The author uses evidence from both textual and archaeological sources. One chapter is devoted to war machines, primarily siege machinery. A second treats ancient agriculture, including water supply and transport, pumps, mills, and presses for wine and oil. It includes an interesting section on the Ptolemaic agrarian policies that encouraged technical developments in a number of areas. A third chapter, on cargo transport, treats lifting devices such as cranes and the transport of heavy weights such as the stone blocks used in monumental building projects. A fourth chapter treats devices for use in the symposium. Schürmann first describes the importance of the symposium for ancient societies. Its accoutrements, to which Philo and Hero devoted much space, included washstands, wine dispens­ ers, lamps, automata, automatic theaters, and the water organ. A chapter is devoted to objects of religious use, such as automata for processions and festivals. Another, concerning public time measure­ ment, treats water clocks and the tower of the winds in Athens. Finally, a chapter is devoted to precision instruments, including the planetarium of Archimedes, the dioptra (a surveying instrument), and the hodometer. Schürmann describes how particular machines worked, and nu­ merous carefully chosen diagrams elucidate her textual explanations. It is her ability both to analyze the technical workings of mechanical devices and to show their social and political significance that makes this

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