You are answering the question I was asking and reinforcing my own thoughts. Associating ideas from disparate fields is what I had in mind. Intuition is also key.
I read a book called Connections, by John Burke, I think, which traced history just that way. He showed how history was not linear but that things in one area would lead to something else in another and then off society would go in that new area.
You should watch the Connections series.