The industrial revolution was the transition from the late-renaissance to the early-modern era.
It wasn’t the end of the Middle Ages. That came with the invention of the printing press and the neoclassical revival of greco-roman styles of art/architecture/literature/philosophy.
The argument is even weaker if we go to before the Industrial Revolution. The Renaissance and scientific revolution happened on the shoulders of intellectual property borrowed/taken from global civilizational giants and on the backs of forced / coerced labor in colonial occupied territories. The luxury of having intellectuals in coffee shops pondering how society should be structured could have only happened by exploited labor in the colonies propping up their livelihoods and arguably through contact with pre-civilizational (indigeneous) societies in the Americas.
Two civilizational giants that come to mind are China and India. Chinese scholars, as you know, invented paper without which the printing press is not possible in the way that we conceive it today. India invented the numerical notation system that allows us to communicate large values and datasets in an efficient manner.
If not for the work of Brahmagupta, al-Khwarizmi and (most importantly for Europe) Fibonacci this notation system would have never been accepted as the number system we use today was considered to be sacrilege and mystical in Europe for centuries.
For paper, as with numerical notation, the practice was brought to Europe with advancement by Islamic civilizations. Cai Lun, Zuo Bo and Fan Ye were crucial in the development of paper which spread globally as we perceive it today.
The colonial narrative, for hundreds of years was that this progress happened in isolation and that was used to justify racism and genocide. I’m glad that in 2026 we are able to unravel such narratives at the seams.
The industrial revolution was the transition from the late-renaissance to the early-modern era.
It wasn’t the end of the Middle Ages. That came with the invention of the printing press and the neoclassical revival of greco-roman styles of art/architecture/literature/philosophy.
The argument is even weaker if we go to before the Industrial Revolution. The Renaissance and scientific revolution happened on the shoulders of intellectual property borrowed/taken from global civilizational giants and on the backs of forced / coerced labor in colonial occupied territories. The luxury of having intellectuals in coffee shops pondering how society should be structured could have only happened by exploited labor in the colonies propping up their livelihoods and arguably through contact with pre-civilizational (indigeneous) societies in the Americas.
Two civilizational giants that come to mind are China and India. Chinese scholars, as you know, invented paper without which the printing press is not possible in the way that we conceive it today. India invented the numerical notation system that allows us to communicate large values and datasets in an efficient manner.
If not for the work of Brahmagupta, al-Khwarizmi and (most importantly for Europe) Fibonacci this notation system would have never been accepted as the number system we use today was considered to be sacrilege and mystical in Europe for centuries.
For paper, as with numerical notation, the practice was brought to Europe with advancement by Islamic civilizations. Cai Lun, Zuo Bo and Fan Ye were crucial in the development of paper which spread globally as we perceive it today.
The colonial narrative, for hundreds of years was that this progress happened in isolation and that was used to justify racism and genocide. I’m glad that in 2026 we are able to unravel such narratives at the seams.