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The history of human technology is nifty but we can't just dive right

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into the nitty gritty details of inventions and gadgets first we have to [Man tries to dive into a book and hurts his head]

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back up a few hundred steps and look at the big picture and the big picture is

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is so big that it should be called the gigantic picture the colossal picture [Girl runs away from a large picture]

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the titanic, well you get the point. What we're getting at is

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that technology didn't pop out of nowhere it's not like that pop tart [Drone flying round a lab]

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we forgot in the toaster it was the result of humanity's best minds wrestling with [Toast pops out of toaster]

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observations about the world around them for thousands of years that means that

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in order to really get the history of Technology that well we have to think

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like real historians and there's more to it than wearing leather elbow patches [Man putting on a wig]

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although that'd be kinda cool, besides learning about printing press and penicillin

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we'll also be pondering how exactly one goes about learning and doing history at [Pictures of past events]

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the same time we'll need to identify the metaphorical brick walls historians run

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into and figure out how to avoid them we'll also need to avoid running into [Bunch of historians walk into a wall]

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real brick walls first all right so today we'll introduce some of the

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thorniest problems in technology history these are the ones that made guys like [Train that has gone through a wall and fallen into the street]

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Smarty McSmarty-pants scratch his head for decades it's caused a lot of hair [Man scatches his head and hair falls out]

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loss in the end well here are just a few of the enormous historical problems

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we'll touch on first thing to avoid is Eurocentrism nothing like some good old [Picture of planet Earth]

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western pride to start a day off right all part of a world conquering balanced [People with knives and forks cutting away at the world]

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breakfast but for real there was a lot going on in the world and it wasn't all

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just happening in Europe second thing to avoid it the great man model well

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contrary to popular opinion a few smart old white men weren't responsible for [Man looks unhappy]

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every technological innovation in history Edison we like you bro but we

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like other people do you're smothering us and for number three we have over

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simplification well we here as Shmoop like keeping things short and sweet but history

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isn't always so simple actually it's one of the most complicated things ever [Book growing in size]

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right after astrophysics and opening potato chip bags without spilling them [Picture of space and Carl Sagan tries to open a bag of chips and spills them]

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everywhere yeah we'll do our best to add in some complex flavor...

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