John Gittings on Peace | FiveBooks | The Browser

http://thebrowser.com/interviews/john-gittings-on-peace?page=2
That
is called the chariot theory of history – the idea that the invention
of the chariot transformed early bronze age society, and so on through
the Gatling gun to atomic bombs. To that I would reply that most
significant inventions and discoveries are of a peaceful not a
military kind. Against the chariot theory of history I would propose
the shadoof theory – the shadoof being the discovery in ancient
Mesopotamia, at about the same time as the chariot was being invented,
that if you have a bucket at the end of a pole which is pivoted on a
wooden cradle, you can hoist water from a lower level to an upper
level. That was a huge step forward in irrigation and agriculture. I
would insist that most technological advances and developments of
civilisation have, can and could only take place in conditions of
peace rather than war.
---SPSmith