Thanks Michael, appriciate your book suggestions.
Sorry, if I came across as a dick or something. It is just passion for the same subject. You did inspire me to try to write some of my own thoughts around this. I would like to write a bit about the intersection between technology and management practices that you describe. Like how various technological changes allowed new ways of organization to happen.
It seems in the history of technology it very often happens that a new technology is made and then decades can pass before we realize how to organize work around this invention in the most optimal way.
As for books. I don't tink I am remotely as well read as you on this. But for general interest in economic history/technology and invention there are something that stood out for me. Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith if you haven't already read it is awesome I think.
Then there are various writing of Terje Tvedt. He is a Norwegian professor specializing on water. He talks about the role of water in economic development. Of interest perhaps to you might be how water was used to power machinery as well as canals for transporting goods. One of my interests is why economies developed so differently around the world. He ties a lot of that in with the different water situation. E.g. Britain had steady flow of water which allowed powering factories year around, while e.g. China and India has very variable flow which does not lend itself to driving factories until the invention of modern turbines for hydro-electric power.
Terje Tvedt goes into things like early water powered factories like the silk mills in Italy which inspired the first cotton mills in Britain. Italy and Netherlands fascinate me in economic history because they already from 1400 to 1700 made extensive use of machinery and tools in a sort of proto industrial society.
The Zaan district in the Netherlands was basically the worlds first industrial area, but it was powered by wind mills rather than steam or water. It was instrumental in making Netherlands a maritime superpower. They could assemble ships faster than anyone else by utilizing wind mills in the manufacture of ships, by using things like wind powered saws.
I am not sure how much this touches upon your key interest as I guess it is hard to dig into management practices of the time.
Personally I find writing about how Leonardo da Vinci developed quite fascinating. The ideas of training and education was quite different then. He studied at the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio. Art, science and engineering all blended together there in a way that it doesn't anymore today.
I wrote a story inspired this reading on the how the arts, science, entertainment, luxury and engineering influence each other. I guess I am fascinated by the role of playfullness in development. https://medium.com/codex/does-art-luxury-and-frivolous-fun-drive-innovation-cae918fbdbde
