Download 1500-1750: a significant increase in world population  Europe is by

 1500‐1750: a significant increase in world population  Europe is by‐passing the biological Old Regime
 heading to a new (modern) demographic pattern
 the end of dramatic epidemics (black death is over)
 A second Agricultural Revolution
 land and property, new agricultural techniques  Why not in Asia?
 the “Columbian exchange” reconsidered
 During the 18th c. a change in patterns of consumption
 increasing demand for former luxuries: sugar, chocolate, silks, … and calicos
 intensification of labor and land use seem to “pay the bill ” for these expenses
 From proto‐industry to industrialization?
 (1) economies of scale (2) use of unskilled cheaper work‐force, (3) water energy
 production is more efficiently organized
 examples: sugar, beer and soysauce industries

The Industrial Revolution (1750‐1850 ca.)
 only in England, the process that follows is called Industrialization or Second I.R.
 Determines an astonishing growth in GDP
but spatially unevenly distributed
 Why did it happen in England?  a never‐ending debate
 changing our point of view
 explanations must be tentative

mechanization
 steam‐engines  spinning‐machines
 weaving‐machines
 using technology: invention vs. innovation
 economic motivations and a fitted cultural framework
 must be profitable (Schumpeterian growth)
 Chinese and Indian lack of incentive
 work‐force is cheap due to agricultural productivity
Richard Arkwright, Waterframe, 1769.
Spinning
machines
Samuel Crompton, Mule, 1774-1779.
James Hargreaves, Spinning Jenny, 1770.
Weawing machines
Edmund Cartwright, Power Loom, 1785-1789.
The first fully
automated loom

transforming non‐animated into animated energy
 solar energy vs. mineral energy
 “no coal, no party!”: China and England
 the story of coal in England
 wood crisis and coal as a substitute
 steam‐power for coal mines
 infrastructures: channels and rivers to transport a heavy commodity
 The result: free from previous constraints
Beyond the solar energy: fossile fuel
formation
 the building of an Empire
 cheap raw materials supplies are crucial  not only coal: wool and iron
 by controlling the “world system” cotton is also at hand
 from North America and India
 China’s hard choice: land for food or for cotton?
 a failed Industrious Revolution
 one industry at a time
 textile first, iron then
 useful to focus capitals on a single target
 forward, backward and side linkages
 the example of the textile industry (cotton gin, and mechanical looms)
 1820s: the train arrives just in time
 this shift determines a century‐long Industrial Revolution  the outcome: cheap commodities and no competitors
 a unique advantage: a world blank market
 until 1870 no decline in overall demand
 shifting from one final market to another
(1) medium‐upper class England and colonies; (2) medium‐upper class continental Europe; (3) working‐class England; (4) working‐class USA and Europe; (5) rest of the world