06 November 2009

About This Issue

In 1943, the British academic and sinologist Joseph Needham (1900–1995) and his team of international collaborators began to produce a multivolume work that ranks among the 20th century’s most significant academic achievements. Entitled Science and Civilization in China, it explored what became known as “The Needham Question”: Why was China, home by many measures to the world’s leading civilization, overtaken by the West in science and technology?

Scholars like Dan Diner have asked similar questions about Islamic civilization, also a global pacesetter in one historical epoch but not today, as the Arab Human Development Reports document with regard to one predominately Muslim part of the world.

The present or impending decline of the United States is of course a hardy perennial in the world of ideas. We hardly lack for new books decrying American schoolchildren’s relatively poor math and science test scores, and these titles often then condemn this nation to the fate of Rome, Great Britain, or really any major power whose influence declined over time.

This issue of eJournal USA explores one nexus of questions at the heart of these discussions: What is innovation? Can governments and societies encourage innovation? How do the emergence of semiconductor-powered computers and Internet-based communication technologies affect the equation?

Our contributors explore these questions from a number of angles, including the influence of culture, geography, and intellectual property rights on innovation. We also present profiles of successful innovators from the United States, Vietnam, Venezuela, South Africa, and Belgium.

We hope you will find these essays timely, informative, and even innovative!

— The Editors