How Transformative Innovations Shaped the Rise of Nations

Gerard Tellis, Stav Rosenzweig

Description

A study of how openness to new ideas and people, competition and empowerment of individuals are key drivers in the development and adoption of transformative innovations.

Over the last 2,000 years, critical innovations have transformed small regions into global powers. But these powers have faded when they did not embrace the next big innovation. Gerard J. Tellis and Stav Rosenzweig argue that openness to new ideas and people, empowerment of individuals and competition are key drivers in the development and adoption of transformative innovations. These innovations, in turn, fuel economic growth, national dominance and global leadership. In How Transformative Innovations Shaped the Rise of Nations, Tellis and Rosenzweig examine the transformative qualities of concrete in Rome; swift equine warfare in Mongolia; critical navigational innovations in the golden ages of Chinese, Venetian, Portuguese and Dutch empires; the patent system and steam engine in Britain; and mass production in the United States of America.

List of Illustrations; Acknowledgments; 1. Global Influence of Transformative Innovations; 2. Roman Concrete: Foundations of an Empire; 3. Swift Equine Warfare and the Rise of the Mongolian Empire; 4. How Gunpowder Shaped the Fortunes of Nations; 5. Golden Age of Chinese Water Navigation; 6. Venetian Shipbuilding: Mastering the Mediterranean; 7. Portuguese Caravel: Building an Oceanic Empire; 8. Fluyt and the Building of the Dutch Empire; 9. Patenting: Institutionalizing Innovation; 10. The Steam Engine and the Rise of the British Empire; 11. American Mass Production and the Rise of the USA; 12. Lessons; Notes; Index.

Sujets

• HISTORY
• Entrepreneurship
• Service innovation
• Social history
• General officer
• Economic history
• World
• General
• International

Informations

• Publié par: Anthem Press
• Date de parution: 30 mai 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783087952
• Langue: English

Extrait

How Transformative Innovations Shaped the Rise of Nations
How Transformative Innovations Shaped the Rise of Nations
From Ancient Rome to Modern America
GERARD J. TELLIS AND STAV ROSENZWEIG
Anthem Press
An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company
www.anthempress.com

This edition first published in UK and USA 2018
by ANTHEM PRESS
75–76 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8HA, UK
or PO Box 9779, London SW19 7ZG, UK
and
244 Madison Ave #116, New York, NY 10016, USA

© Gerard J. Tellis and Stav Rosenzweig 2018

The authors assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above,
no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means
(electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise),
without the prior written permission of both the copyright
owner and the above publisher of this book.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN-13: 978-1-78308-732-7 (Hbk)
ISBN-10: 1-78308-732-3 (Hbk)

This title is also available as an e-book.
To Cheryl Tellis
To Eyal, Oren and Tomer
For her constant support and encouragement
For their endless love and support
To Don Murray
For his belief in and generous support of our research
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
1 Global Influence of Transformative Innovation
2 Roman Concrete: Foundations of an Empire
3 Swift Equine Warfare and the Rise of Mongol Power
4 How Gunpowder Shaped the Fortunes of Nations
5 Golden Age of Chinese Water Navigation
6 Venetian Shipbuilding: Mastering the Mediterranean
7 Portuguese Caravel: Building an Oceanic Empire
8 The Fluyt and the Building of the Dutch Empire
9 Patenting: Institutionalizing Innovation
10 The Steam Engine and the Rise of the British Empire
11 American Mass Production and the Rise of the United States
12 Lessons
Notes
Index
Illustrations
Figures
1.1 A model of the drivers and consequences of transformative innovation
2.1 View from below of dome of the Pantheon
2.2 Roman Empire at its peak in 117 CE
3.1 Mongol empire at its greatest extent
3.2 Wild horses of Inner Mongolia
4.1 Approximate timeline of inventions in gunpowder weapons in ancient China
4.2 Map of Song and its rivals
4.3 Intensity of wars in Europe and China between 1300 and 1900
5.1 Model of Zheng He’s treasure ship
5.2 Voyages of Zheng He
6.1 Venetian galley
6.2 Venetian Arsenal
7.1 Portuguese caravel
7.2 Lighthouse of Cabo Sao Vicente, Sagres, Portugal
8.1 Dutch sawmill in Ulst, Friesland
8.2 Replica of Batavia, example of the fluyt
9.1 Global patents from 1790 to 1814
10.1 Timeline of the steam engine
10.2 Newcomen’s steam engine
11.1 GDP of Mexico, Brazil and the United States between 1700 and 1900
11.2 Historical patents among major world economies
11.3 Share of world GDP from 1700 to 2008
11.4 Billion-dollar start-ups by country of registration
Tables
1.1 Transformative innovations and the rise of nations
2.1 Region of origin of Roman emperors
A2.1 Important Roman buildings
Acknowledgments
The effort for this research spanned ten years and involved an in-depth analysis of the history of innovations that transformed the fate of global powers as they peaked and declined. This research would have been impossible without the help and support of numerous people.
First, we thank Don Murray for his belief in our research and his generous support of it through grants to the USC Marshall Center for Global Innovation.
Second, a number of research assistants helped with various chapters and in collecting data, figures and graphs. We are very grateful to Daniel Charnoff, Lauren Alderette, Jeanne Almeida, Darryn Azevedo, Leslie Chang, Selin Erguncu, Rahul Francis, Kristen Mascarenhas, Sajeev Nair, Monica Orlinschi, Aviad Moreno, Connor O’Shea and especially Leila Feldman.
Third, we thank our families for their inspiration, constant support and sacrifice of time. We are grateful to Cheryl Tellis and to Eyal, Oren and Tomer Rosenzweig Soffer.
1
Global Influence of Transformative Innovation
In the three centuries BCE, several states flourished around the Mediterranean: Athens, Macedonia, Egypt, Carthage, Phoenicia and Rome. Yet only one of them, Rome, was able to create and efficiently manage a vast empire, for over 300 years, eventually extending from England to Persia and surrounding the whole Mediterranean (see Chapter 2 ). What caused Rome to become such a vast, encompassing and stable empire for so many centuries?
In the thirteenth century, a self-made leader from Mongolia, Genghis Khan, united disparate tribes and built an empire that stretched from Eastern China across Asia to Russia, Hungary and the Eastern Mediterranean (see Chapter 3 ). How did people from a relatively poor and technologically backward country of Mongolia come to overpower and rule so many rich, established kingdoms all over Asia and Eastern Europe?
In the early fifteenth century, China was the world’s greatest navigational power. At its peak, its navy, under Admiral Zheng He, had over 300 ships, which were up to 400 feet long, with a crew of 37,000. 1 It made multiple expeditions to the Far East, India, Middle East and Africa (see Chapter 4 ). Yet, when still at its peak, China abruptly stopped these expeditions, closed in on itself and fell behind. Many nations surpassed China as navigational powers. What caused China to fall behind these other nations?
In the fifteenth century, the city-state of Venice amassed great wealth and became the dominant power in the Mediterranean and probably the richest political entity in Europe. It monopolized trade between Europe and the East, especially the spice trade. In contrast, Portugal was a small, relatively backward country. Yet by the end of the fifteenth century, Portugal, and not Venice, discovered the sea route to India and the East that triggered the rise of the Portuguese empire and the eclipse of Venice as a naval and trading power (see Chapter 6 ). What led to the rise of Venice and subsequently that of Portugal?
In the seventeenth century, the relatively poor lowlands that now constitute the Netherlands united to form a great empire that at its peak controlled territories in the Americas, Africa, South Asia and East Asia (see Chapter 8 ). What led to the rise of the Netherlands?
In the sixteenth century, the lands that now constitute Germany were four times the size of England in terms of gross domestic product (GDP). Germany was ahead of England on most metrics of economic activity. It enjoyed a larger land mass, more forests, more arable land and more minerals (especially coal and iron) than England. Yet, by 1820, England’s GDP was one and a half times as large as Germany’s (see Chapter 10 ). 2 What caused England to speed ahead of Germany?
In the early nineteenth century, Brazil, Mexico and the United States were similar nations with abundant resources and sparse populations. In 1800, the per capita GDP of the United States was about the same as that of Brazil and only twice that of Mexico. By 1913, the per capita GDP of the United States grew to be about four times that of Mexico and about six times that of Brazil. 3 The United States had become a far bigger economy than either Brazil or Mexico and a major world power. By 1900, it even surpassed England in GDP (see Chapter 11 ). What caused this dramatic divergence in the economies of the United States, Brazil and Mexico?
The above cases show that economic and global leadership in the world has shifted from nation to nation. No one country has persistently led the world in terms of innovation, wealth and power. It is fascinating to see how just in the last 500 years, leadership in these areas has swung from Mongolia to China to Venice to Portugal to the Netherlands to England and to the United States. The Ottomans from Turkey and the Mughals in India also became dominant powers in between. Yet, no nation held sway permanently. Why did this constant change in global leadership occur?
Scholars in various disciplines have provided numerous explanations for the rise of great nations, as in the cases above. These explanations include advantageous geography, natural resources, climate, religion (especially Christianity), Western culture, colonization or luck. Many of these explanations have been deep, scholarly studies of one or some of the above cases. However, a robust explanation is one that can cover all the above cases, preferably with a single explanation. Most of the prior explanations, while good for one or a couple of cases, fail when applied to all of the above diverse cases, as we discuss later in this chapter. In particular, the rise of economic and world powers in the above cases occurred over time, often when geography, climate and natural resources remained essentially the same. So, these three factors cannot be a sole or primary explanation. Also, across the above cases, religion and culture varied substantially. Indeed, the rise of Rome, the Mongols, China and the Ottomans occurred without the aid of Christianity. Moreover, among Christian states, some rose and fell, while others stagnated. Some were Catholic (Portugal and Venice), while others were Protestant (the Netherlands and