The Three Greatest Inventions of Modern Times: an Idea and its International Public
Important ideas are usually simple and seductive, able to catch and hold the imagination of a public, which then makes the idea its own. The axiom that the three greatest inventions of modern times were the printing press, the magnetic compass, and guns and gunpowder spread with uncommon speed, allowing self-proclaimed Moderns to assert their independence from the Ancients—their intellectual forebears and, until then, masters. This paper explores the acceptance and repetition of the notion that these three technologies enlarged Europe’s horizons and forever changed the ways in which its peoples and nations would relate to one another.