The wheel : inventions & reinventions / Richard W. Bulliet.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

In this book, Richard W. Bulliet focuses on three major phases in the evolution of the wheel and their relationship to the needs and ambitions of human society. He begins in 4000 B.C.E. with the first wheels affixed to axles. He then follows with the innovation of wheels turning independently on their axles and concludes five thousand years later with the caster, a single rotating and pivoting wheel.

Bulliet's most interesting finding is that a simple desire to move things from place to place did not drive the wheel's development. If that were the case, the wheel could have been invented at any time almost anywhere in the world. By dividing the history of this technology into three conceptual phases and focusing on the specific men, women, and societies that brought it about, Bulliet expands the social, economic, and political significance of a tool we only partially understand. He underscores the role of gender, combat, and competition in the design and manufacture of wheels, adding vivid imagery to illustrate each stage of their development.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

This concise and well-executed work is technology history at its best. Bulliet (history, Columbia Univ.; Hunters, Herders, and Hamburgers) firmly anchors the developments and adaptations of wheels within the social and cultural contexts that give technologies their meaning. Using scant but convincing evidence, the author also presents a novel hypothesis on the origin of the wheel: it first arose in ancient Carpathian copper mines (4000 BCE), he says, and not in Mesopotamia as traditionally believed. While the material here is generally accessible, it has hints of academic style and structure, particularly in its approach to contrary arguments. Nonetheless, the work flows smoothly, is copiously illustrated, and contains riveting details on objects, events, and ideas including the mobile homes of nomads on the Eurasian Steppe (3000 BCE); the sudden reversal in European chauvinist attitudes toward carriage use and design following the rise of Hungary's warrior king, -Matthias Corvinus (15th century CE); and competing Eastern and Western attitudes regarding human-powered vehicles (rickshaws). VERDICT Simply excellent, this work will appeal not just to history readers but also to those interested in the social and cultural developments that both fuel and are fueled by technical changes.-Evan M. Anderson, Kirkendall P.L., Ankeny, IA © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

CHOICE Review

Though the wheel is a central feature of most history of technology textbooks, authors of monographs and scholarly articles have tended to look at examples of wheel technology in particular times and places instead of the entire category of wheels. Bulliet (emer., Columbia Univ.) is interested in reconstructing the origin of wheeled vehicles and talking more precisely about types of wheels. In at least two ways, he points out that this story is complex rather than a simple, triumphal tale of the technology's innate superiority. First, he identifies three kinds of wheels--wheelsets, independently rotating wheels, and casters--which means at least three different inventions. Second, he argues that cultures chose certain types of wheels when and if they had a need for them. In other words, civilizations that lacked wheeled transportation were not ignorant; their existing technologies were effective. Bulliet's narrative stretches from Carpathian copper mines around 4000 BCE to the diffusion of the rickshaw in the last quarter of the 19th century CE. Much of his evidence is secondary, but he is obviously thoroughly versed in the literature. Instructors might assign the book for supplementary reading or a book review. Summing Up: Recommended. All readership levels. --Amy K. Ackerberg-Hastings, independent scholar