Introduction

摘要

In this special issue, we offer four articles on patterns of useful and reliable knowledge in premodern China. They are the fruits of the conference organized by the Global Economie History Network (GEHN) in Taiwan 2006, which concentrated on historical relations between regimes of useful and reliable knowledge (URK for short), technological change and material/industrial progress in world history. Theories and evidences on the connectivities of URK across great systems, and different methods in analysing, contrasting and comparing the material advancement among civilizations are newly introduced to explain patterns of divergence.