The Industrial Revolution was influenced by both the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment…
Category: history of economic growth
Why Did the Industrial Revolution Happen in Britain in the Eighteenth Century?
The central feature of the Industrial Revolution was technological innovation on an unprecedented scale, so explaining the time and place of the innovation is tantamount to explaining the time and place of the Industrial Revolution. Why did this wave of innovation occur in Britain in the eighteenth century?
The Nineteenth-Century Rules for Growth
Over the course of the Industrial Revolution, Britain became an industrial superpower. Other countries had to find policies that would allow them to develop their industry despite Britain’s enormous first-mover advantage. These policies necessarily involved protectionist trade policies and government intervention…
The Second Industrial Revolution
The Second Industrial Revolution (1870-1914) was characterized by a close connection between science and technology. Science was developing: chemistry acquired its atomic foundations, for example, and the scientific study of electricity began. The extension of scientific knowledge gave technicians more avenues to investigate…
The Division of the World
W. Arthur Lewis explains how the world divided into manufacturers and primary producers…
More on the Division of the World
Long-distance trade grew rapidly during the nineteenth century. Third World countries increased their production of primary products, and decreased their production of industrial goods. The gap between the per capita incomes of the West and those of the Third World widened substantially…
The Transformation of Japan after the Meiji Restoration
In the three or four decades that followed the Meiji Restoration, Japan utterly transformed itself. The transformation was wide-ranging, deliberate, determined, and profound. By the beginning of World War I, Japan could justly claim to be among the leading nations of the world…
Work Between the Wars: Down the Mine
Coal continued to power British industry and warm British homes well into the second half of the twentieth century. Work in a coal mine was dirty, difficult and dangerous. George Orwell described the work in an essay published in 1937…
One Hundred and Fifty Years of American Growth
American technological progress was rapid between 1920 and 1970, and slow after 1970. Why was it so rapid before 1970? Why was it so slow after 1970?
Technological Progress and Economies of Scale
From the late nineteenth century to the early twenty-first century, one of the keys to growth was the exploitation of technologies that displayed increasing returns to scale…
