How ideas travel
A new idea changes very little if it stays in one person's head or one city's library. To shape the world, it has to reach people who will use it, argue about it and pass it on. The Renaissance (roughly 1400 to 1600) and the Enlightenment that followed in the 17th and 18th centuries produced many new ideas in science, medicine and politics. Some spread quickly and are still part of daily life. Others met strong resistance for decades before they were accepted.
Two questions help when studying any idea from the past. The first is about mechanism, meaning the means by which the idea travelled, such as printed books, laws, posters or revolutions. The second is about consequence, meaning what the idea changed and whether that change lasted.
The long-term effects that an idea, invention or event leaves behind for later generations.
Four cases show these mechanisms and consequences at work. They are the printing press, encyclopedias, the spread of vaccination, and the movement of Enlightenment political ideas into revolutions and then into liberalism. General criteria for judging whether an innovation is significant are covered in the lesson on what makes an innovation significant.
9 more sections in this topic
Pick this up in your Library: it holds the whole topic, notes, cheatsheet and questions.