Why did the Industrial revolution start in England?
It’s Clark’s answer that convinces him of the supremacy of culture in explaining economic growth. Traditional theories have emphasized the importance of the Scientific Revolution and England’s favorable climate: political stability, low taxes, open markets. Clark retorts that both China and Japan around 1800 were about as technically advanced as Europe, had stable societies, open markets and low taxes. But their industrial revolutions came only later. What distinguished England, he says, was the widespread emergence of middle-class values of “patience, hard work, ingenuity, innovativeness, education” that favored economic growth. After examining birth and death records, he concludes that in England unlike many other societies the most successful men had more surviving children than the less fortunate. Slowly, the attributes of success that children learned from parents became part of the common culture. Biology drove economics. He rejects the well-known theory of German sociologist Max
The Industrial Revolution was a period in the late 18th and early 19th centuries when major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, and transportation had a profound effect on the socioeconomic and cultural conditions in Britain. The changes subsequently spread throughout Europe and North America and eventually the world, a process that continues as industrialisation. The onset of the Industrial Revolution marked a major turning point in human society; almost every aspect of daily life was eventually influenced in some way.
England – Well, Britain to be more correct, had the right raw materials that were easily obtained, the right economic climate – wealthy landowners wanting to make more money, the right agricultural climate – innovations were making many of the rural poor out of work, the right political climate, it was stable and the right markets for the products – Empire
One word: Fuel England at the opening of the 17th century was sporting rapid population growth. And as more British are born, the demand for burning fuel for cooking/heating increases alongside. During this period, wood was the primary source of fuel for the average household, and it came from forests in the countryside. Bu unlike the mainland European countries, England was an island and did not have as much trees as did France or Italy. Soon, the forests of England became exhausted and prices for firewood skyrocketed (not only because they were running out of trees, but because wood had to be transported from ever more distance forests in the countryside hence increased cost). The problem was getting out of hand, until people decided that they had enough of wood and decided to burn coal instead. Coal was relatively abundant in England, also coal mines were situated near rivers where they could be transport easily to the urban centers of London and elsewhere. But the coal on the surfa
England – Well, Britain to be more correct, had the right raw materials that were easily obtained, the right economic climate – wealthy landowners wanting to make more money, the right agricultural climate – innovations were making many of the rural poor out of work, the right political climate, it was stable and the right markets for the products – Empire. See: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsb…
