Reddit reviews How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World
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Gunpowder: Alchemy, Bombards, and Pyrotechnics: The History of the Explosive that Changed the World. I read it after deciding to base my next writing project around mages who could imbibe common gunpowder to gain powers. Was very enjoyable and informative read.
Currently reading How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World, which is going to influence my next trilogy (set a little further along in the Powder Mage universe's industrial revolution) a great deal.
According to the book How We Got to Now, people only realized they needed glasses after the printing press was invented—as books became more abundant, people had to focus their eyes on the letters up close (versus looking at their herds from afar, or something similar) and began realizing their sight was blurry. Unfortunately, glasses didn't exist at the time, but that's what spurred their invention.
So some people didn't really know they had poor eyesight. I'd bet they just lived with it, thinking it was typical.
Check out "How We Got To Now" by Steven Johnson http://amzn.com/B00INIXU5I