International Technology Transfer

Technology transfer is widely recognized as a principal means of relieving world poverty. In the absence of a comprehensive theory of transfer, developing countries must rely on the experience of their predecessors, that is on case studies of earlier transfers. This volume provides ten such case studies. Ranging over the period 1700-1914 and across Britain, France, Germany, Russia, the United States and Japan, the cases span technologies as diverse as textiles, iron and steel, railways, heavy chemicals, the telegraph, the telephone and electric lamp manufacture. While focused on a particular technology or range of technologies, each study examines one or more aspects of the transfer process: inhibiting factors in the originating society, vehicles and routes of transfer, conditions for successful adoption in a receptor economy, circumstances shaping modifications and benefits from reverse flows.