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August 20 - November 13, 2022
Abraham Darby
John Smeaton,
Even though innovation is obviously cumulative, there was a distinct acceleration in the middle of the eighteenth century. In no place was this more visible than in textile production.
In 1769 Arkwright, one of the dominant figures of the Industrial Revolution, patented his “water frame,”
In 1771 they built one of the world’s first factories, at Cromford.
“self-acting mule.”
mechanization of weaving.
flying shuttle by John Kay in 1733.
Edmund Cartwright introduced the power loom in 1785,
It was the growth in this sector that pulled ahead the whole economy.
first canals, then roads, and finally railways.
after 1770, and by 1810 they had linked up many of the most important manufacturing areas.
James Brindley,
John McAdam, who invented tarmac around 1816,
The first steam train was built by Richard Trevithick in 1804.
George Stephenson, the son of illiterate parents and the inventor of the famous train “The Rocket,”
John Foster,
The rapid expansion of cotton decimated the wool industry—creative destruction in action.
Corn Laws,
On August 16, 1819, a meeting to protest the political system and the policies of the government was planned to be held in St. Peter’s Fields, Manchester.
Joseph Johnson,
Peterloo Massacre.
the political institutions in England gave way to the pressure, and the destabilizing threat of much wider social unrest, particularly after the 1830 revolution in France against Charles X,
In 1832 the government passed the First Reform Act.
1846 they managed to get the hated Corn Laws repealed,
Central was the political conflict between absolutism and its opponents.
emergence of a new regime based on constitutional rule and pluralism.
drift in English institutions and the way they interacted with critical junctures.
the norm was established that the king could not raise new taxes without the consent of Parliament.
political mobilization of rural communities, seen in England with such moments as the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381.
critical juncture caused by the massive expansion of trade into the Atlantic.
This created a new class of merchants and businessmen,
These new men wanted and demanded different economic institutions, and as they got wealthier through trade, they became more powerful.
the Long Parliament sat and the Civil War broke out in 1642, these merchants primarily sided with the parliamentary cause.
In the 1670s they were heavily involved in the formation of the Whig Party, to oppose Stuart absolutism, and in 1688 they would be pivotal in deposing James II.
the emergence and empowerment of diverse interests—ranging from the gentry, a class of commercial farmers that had emerged in the Tudor period, to different types of manufacturers to Atlantic traders—meant that the coalition against Stuart absolutism was not only strong but also broad.
The fact that Parliament after 1688 represented such a broad coalition was a crucial factor in making members of Parliament listen to petitions, even when they came from people outside of Parliament and even from those without a vote.
The empowerment of such a broad coalition also played an important role in the persistence and strengthening of these inclusive economic and political institutions, as we will see in chapter 11.
Still none of this made a truly pluralistic regime inevitable, and its emergence was in part a consequence of the contingent path of history.
contingency and a broad coalition were deciding factors underpinning the emergence of pluralism and inclusive institutions.
IN 1445 IN THE GERMAN city of Mainz, Johannes Gutenberg unveiled an innovation with profound consequences for subsequent economic history:
In Western Europe, the importance of the printing press was quickly recognized.
the Low Countries, into Spain, and even into Eastern Europe,
As early as 1485 the Ottoman sultan Bayezid II issued
an edict that Muslims were expressly forbidden from printing in Arabic.
1727 that the first printing press was allowed in the Ottoman lands. Then Sultan ...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
Müteferrika’s printing was going to be closely monitored.
three religious and legal scholars, the Kadis.
Until well into the second half of the nineteenth century, book production in the Ottoman Empire was still primarily undertaken by scribes hand-copying existing books.
The Ottoman lands lagged far behind the European countries with the lowest educational attainment in this period,
