In his magisterial The History of Techniques, the French historian of technology Bertrand Gille (1920–1980) constructs a Western-centric world history of technology based on a technical systems approach. In doing so, he is forced to deal with the tension between Western-centric approaches and the conventional narrative of the history of Chinese technology. In order to avoid internal contradictions within his world history framework, Gille reconfigures the historical narrative about ancient