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Understanding the Industrial Revolution1

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British Economic Growth during the Industrial Revolution. By CraftsN. F. R.. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985. Pp. 193. £19.50 (paperback £7.95).
The Economics of the Industrial Revolution. Edited by MokyrJoel. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1985. Pp. xi + 267. £18.50 (paperback £7.95).
The History of the British Coal Industry. Volume 2: 1700–1830: The Industrial Revolution. By FlinnMichael W.. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984. Pp. xxi + 491. £35.

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Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Julian Hoppit
Julian Hoppit
Affiliation:
University CollegeLondon
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The Historical Journal , Volume 30 , Issue 1 , March 1987, pp. 211 - 224
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

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References

2 Cameron, R., ‘The industrial revolution, a misnomer’, in Schneider, J. (ed.), Wirtschaftkräfte und Wirstschaftswege, v (Stuttgart, 1981), 367Google Scholar. Davis, L. E., ‘Specification, quantification and analysis in economic history’, in Taylor, G. R. and Ellsworth, L. F. (eds.), Approaches to American economic history (Charlottesville, Virginia, 1971), p. 109Google Scholar.

3 ‘The industrial revolution’, reprinted in R. M. Hartwell (ed.), The causes of the industrial revolution in England (London, 1967), p. 31.

4 Coleman, D. C., ‘Industrial growth and industrial revolutions’, Economica, XXIII (1956), 2Google Scholar.

5 Hartwell, R. M., ‘Introduction’, in Hartwell, , Causes of the industrial revolution, p. 7Google Scholar. Also Clark, G. N., The idea of the industrial revolution (Glasgow, 1953), p. 33Google Scholar. Ashton, T. S., The industrial revolution 1760–1830 (Oxford, 1977), pp. 1–2Google Scholar.

6 ‘The present and the past in the English industrial revolution 1880–1980’, Past and Present, CIII (1984), 131–172Google Scholar.

7 Mokyr, , ‘The industrial revolution’, in Mokyr, , pp. 3–4Google Scholar. Crafts, pp. 6–7.

8 Crafts, p. 6.

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11 Fogel, R. W., ‘The new economic history’, Economic History Review, XXIX (1966), 651Google Scholar. New economic history has also been called Cliometric or econometric history. ‘A cliometrician is an economist applying economic theory (usually simple) to historical facts (not always quantitative) in the interest of history (not economics)’. McCloskey, D. N., ‘The achievements of the Cliometric school’, Journal of Economic History, XXXVIII (1978), 15Google Scholar.

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18 Crafts, p. 30.

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20 Crafts, p. 87.

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22 Crafts, pp. 4, 65–9. Wrigley, E. A., ‘Urban growth and agricultural change: England and the continent in the early modern period’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, XV (1985), 700Google Scholar. Deane, and Cole, , British economic growth, p. 142Google Scholar. Waller, P. J., Town, city and nation: England 1850–1914 (Oxford, 1983), P. 7Google Scholar.

23 Crafts, p. 69. Mathias, P., The first industrial nation (London, 1969), p. 2Google Scholar.

24 Crafts, p. 76.

25 Crafts, p. 152.

26 Crafts, p. 7.

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33 Crafts, p. 3.

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35 Crafts, p. 68.

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38 Hoppit, J., ‘The use and abuse of credit in eighteenth-century England’, in Outhwaite, R. B. and McKendrick, N. (eds.), Business life and public policy (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 64–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Mathias, P., ‘Capital credit and enterprise in the industrial revolution’, in his The transformation of England (London, 1979), pp. 91–2Google Scholar.

39 Granger and Elliott, ‘A fresh look at wheat prices’. Eagly, R. V. and Smith, V. K., ‘Domestic and international integration of the London money market, 1731–1789’, Journal of Economic History, XXXVI (1976), 198–212CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Parsons, B. T., ‘The behaviour of prices on the London stock market in the early eighteenth century’ (University of Chicago Ph.D. thesis, 1974)Google Scholar. Chartres, , ‘The marketing of agricultural produce’. Pawson, E., Transport and economy: the turnpike roads of eighteenth century Britain (London, 1977)Google Scholar. Turnbull, G. L., ‘Provincial road carrying in England in the eighteenth century’, Journal of Transport History, IV (1977), 17–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

40 Crafts, p. 79.

41 McCloskey, D. N., ‘The industrial revolution 1780–1860: a survey’, in Mokyr, , p. 62Google Scholar.

42 ‘The future of the new economic history’, in Rabb, T. K. and Rotberg, R. I. (eds.), The new history (Princeton, 1982), p. 188Google Scholar.

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47 For a recent summary see Clarkson, L. A., Proto-industrtalization: the first phase of industrialization? (London, 1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The general theory was presented first by Mendels, F. F., ‘Proto-industrialization: the first phase of the industrialization process’, Journal of Economic History, XXXII (1972), 241–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar. A more sophisticated and less unilinear picture was drawn by Kriedte, P., Medick, H. & Schlumbohm, J., Industrialization before industrialization (Cambridge, 1981)Google Scholar. The difficulties of applying such a general theory to the English case were made brutally clear in Coleman, D. C., ‘Proto-industrialization: a concept too many’, Economic History Review, XXXVI (1983), 435–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

48 Berg, , Hudson, and Sonenscher, , ‘Manufacture in town and country’, p. 19Google Scholar.

49 Ibid.

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63 Styles, J., ‘Embezzlement, industry and the law in England, 1500–1800’, in Berg, , Hudson, and Sonenscher, , pp. 173–210Google Scholar. Of related interest see Sugarman, D. and Rubin, G. R., ‘Towards a new history of law and material society in England, 1750–1914’, in Sugarman, and Rubin, (eds.), Law, economy and society, 1750–1914 (Abingdon, 1984), pp. 1–123Google Scholar.

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59 Most obviously, Hobsbawm, E. J., ‘The machine breakers’ in his Labouring men (London, 1968), pp. 5–22Google Scholar. See also Rule, J. G., The experience of labour in eighteenth-century industry (London, 1981), chapters 6 and 7Google Scholar.

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62 Berg, p. 20.