1450 to 1750 not only mapped the whole of the Earth but measured it, weighed it, determined its distance from the Sun, calculated its position in the solar system, estimated its age, approximated its evolution, and greatly refined understanding of its constituent elements and their practical applications With the “discovery” of the Americas, published maps and atlases proliferated; notable there was the work of Flemish geographer Gerardus Mercator (1512–94), whose 1538 world map and 1541 terrestrial globe were superseded by his famous projection of 1569 While cartographic technologies saw major advances, navigational technologies lagged Devices in use long before the Age of Empires —mainly the compass and astrolabe—were not significantly refined until the invention of the sextant in 1731 and a method for accurately determining longitude in 1761 Throughout most of this period, most seafarers continued to rely on technologies and knowledge many centuries old Mathematical Technologies Integral to the Scientific Revolution was a revolution in mathematics, tied closely to astronomy and physics, culminating in the extraordinary mathematical achievements of Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1727), especially his invention of calculus Among the many monumental mathematical achievements of these years was the invention of the decimal system in 1585, accompanied by a host of advances in accounting, banking, measurements of time and space, and related mathematical technologies Still, throughout the early modern period the vast majority of the world’s inhabitants reckoned time by the Sun’s position in the sky and the cycles of the seasons, and distance by the time required to traverse it Medical Technologies The first emergence of genuinely empirical science can arguably be traced to a millennium’s worth of trial and error regarding the nutritional and medicinal properties of plants Throughout the early modern period, centuries-old herbal remedies comprised the overwhelming preponderance of medical technology for the vast majority of the world’s people By this time, Chinese acupuncture, herbalism, and related bodies of knowledge dated back thousands of years The major advances in medical technologies in the West were related to increased knowledge of human anatomy and physiology, gained mainly through systematic dissections, artistic renderings, and publication and dissemination of the knowledge thus gained The discovery by William Harvey (1578–1657) of the circulation of the blood, combined with the invention of the microscope in the early 1600s, revolutionized the study of human anatomy (Contrary to many popular and scholarly accounts, practitioners of ancient Chinese medicine did not discover or describe the circulation of the blood, though in 1242 the Arab physician Al-Nafis did, and in considerable empirical detail.) If clinical medical practices saw few tangible advances during the early modern period, the rapid accumulation and wide circulation of empirical knowledge in all spheres relating to health and disease laid the groundwork for the revolutions in medicine in the 19th and 20th centuries As this brief and selective survey suggests, the conventional narrative of the revolutionary transformations in science and technology in the early modern period needs to be combined with an appreciation of long-term continuities, and of the partial, uneven, and nonlinear nature of scientific and technological progress Understanding these transformations further requires situating them within broader contexts of European empire building and the quests for power and profit that comprised one of their essential motives Science and technology have always been intimately related to politics, economics, culture, and every other sphere of human activity, a fact especially apparent during the period covered in this volume Social and Class Relations Wherever states have formed, so too have social classes and hierarchies characterized by unequal access to power, privilege, and other social resources Through codes and laws, states “write the rules” about how society should be organized The vast majority of all states, throughout world history and in the period under discussion here, codified into law the dominance of some social groups over others, enforcing those laws through their superior coercive powers, including military force During the early modern period, an estimated 80 to 90 percent of the world’s population lived in territories dominated by states, and were thus designated by virtue of birth, gender, race, language, religion, and other factors, as members of specific social groups Such states often developed elaborate ideological xxix