| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 109.1

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 109.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Methods/Theory

Joel Mokyr. The Gifts of Athena: Historical Origins of the Knowledge Economy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 2002. Pp. xiii, 359. $35.00.

It is a commonplace that each generation rewrites history from the perspective of its own times. This book tells the story of the economic growth of the Western world from the perspective of the contemporary revolution in information and communications technology (ICT). To understand economic growth, we need to understand how knowledge has been created, disseminated, and applied. Mokyr starts with the industrial revolution and what he calls "the industrial enlightenment" of the late eighteenth century. After that, a chapter takes the story through the second industrial revolution to the present day. Three further chapters cover other dimensions of this transformation—the rise of the factory system; knowledge, household behavior, and health; and the political economy of knowledge—exploring ways in which political institutions have retarded or promoted the application of knowledge to innovation.

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