THE AGE OF MANUFACTURES - Industry, innovation and work in Britain 1700 - 1820

by Maxine Berg

This edition of The Age of Manufactures provides an exciting overview of the 18th century British economy. Recent macro-economic history has discounted many of the achievements of the Industrial Revolution, but Maxine Berg digs beneath the macroeconomic estimates to dissect the characteristics and processes of industry in the 18th century. A male industrial revolution has been presented as the general experience, but other industries, notably in textiles and metal products, were primarily employers of women. This book gives these industries and their workforce due prominence.

For this edition, additional chapters, graphics and statistical summaries as well as revision of other chapters have refreshed and enhanced this well-established and important contribution to British economic history.

Genres: History, British Literature, European History

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Professor of History at the University of Warwick, where she has taught since 1998. She is a Fellow of the British Academy and of the Royal Historical Society.

Reviews

[Mariel]

This is a difficult book. But it is important, so I continue with an inward sigh.

Berg examines the industrial revolution prior to 1780 and argues that the changes taking place before 1780 are necessary for the rise of household and workshop industries (proto-industrialization). The Industrial Revolution is more complex and occurs over a longer period than previously assumed.

She is both synthesizing and commenting on the existing historiography as it stood in the late 1970s, early 1980s. She argues against E.P. Thompson by incorporating women into the lens and says that women not factories encouraged "time-work discipline." She also sees a strong connection between industry and agriculture, and opposes technological determinism noting that new technology still required labor. Above all, there is not one road to industrialization but many different approaches that occur over the long term with some ebb and flow of success and failure.

What is hard about this book is that she doesn't lay out her thesis until the end, and jumps around a great deal in the middle. I read a few academic reviews that were pretty harsh, but the book still maintains a strong position in the literature. But it is definitely for academics as no one else would tolerate the meanderings.