Most historians currently don't really adhere to general theories in general. With Marxist historiography going out of favor, and Christian historiography already having been put into the corner before that, there is a reluctance to make any sweeping statements about all of history.

One situation in history in which technological change has been studied a lot is of course the Industrial Revolution. One text that attempts to explain this process in a way that might be generalized is Margaret Jacobs Scientific Culture and the Making of the Industrial West. But another book that makes a great case for why the Industrial Revolution really was the result of a number of strange coincidences and geographical luck is Kenneth Pomeranz' The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy.