"This column analyses the diffusion of legal institutions that established Europe’s first large-scale experiments in mass public education. [...] Cities that formalised these institutions grew faster over the next 200 years, both by attracting and by producing more highly skilled residents."

"I argue that the crux was a “marriage of engineering culture and entrepreneurship.” That is, elites developed a new “engineering culture” that spread beliefs wholly different from those behind Renaissance, Medieval, or Classical approaches to knowledge and craft production." See also Mokyr, below.

"A review of Russell 1986's 'Like Engend'ring Like: Heredity and Animal Breeding in Early Modern England', describing development of selective breeding and discussing models of the psychology and sociology of innovation."