To accompany his book on Social Inventions, Stu Conger has prepared tables that typify social inventions in social science and other areas. His table of social science inventions is now available online, and readers are invited to send additional items to stu.conger@sympatico.ca. Items that are submitted may be added to the list.
How did he do it? "To identify these tables, I read some books such as the history of education and simply recorded the first instances. Then I hired Dallas McQuarie to do more of the same. We also just kept an eye out for news reports that might mention the first time ever. At that time there were no English books such as the Timetables of History by Grun to use as a ready source."
Social Inventions
Social inventions are new ways in which people relate to themselves or to each other, individually or collectively. Social inventions can be classified as procedures, organizations or laws. A social invention (like all inventions) takes place only once. After that point in history it becomes an innovation when introduced into a new setting.
These timetables of Educational Inventions and Social Science Inventions were prepared as part of the background research for Social Inventions , published in the Books section of The Innovation Journal (www.innovation.cc). Stu Conger stu.conger@sympatico.ca. and the Editor-in-Chief of The Innovation Journal eglor@magma.ca welcome suggestions from readers for additions and corrections. Please send us sufficient information to fill in the Table, and a written, quotable source for the information.
Stu Conger
March 8, 2003
Updated 01/04/2007