Energy and the English Industrial Revolution

by E. A. Wrigley

• ISBN13: 9780521131858
• ISBN10: 0521131855
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-09-27
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

The industrial revolution transformed the productive power of societies. It did so by vastly increasing the individual productivity, thus delivering whole populations from poverty. In this new account by one of the world's acknowledged authorities the central issue is not simply how the revolution began but still more why it did not quickly end. The answer lay in the use of a new source of energy. Pre-industrial societies had access only to very limited energy supplies. As long as mechanical energy came principally from human or animal muscle and heat energy from wood, the maximum attainable level of productivity was bound to be low. Exploitation of a new source of energy in the form of coal provided an escape route from the constraints of an organic economy but also brought novel dangers. Since this happened first in England, its experience has a special fascination, though other countries rapidly followed suit.

Table of Contents

List of figures	p. x
List of tables	p. xi
Acknowledgements	p. xiii
Introduction	p. 1
Opening Pandora's jar	p. 1
Overview of the nature and structure of the book	p. 2
A sketch of the argument	p. 7
The limits to growth in organic economies	p. 9
The views of the classical economists	p. 10
The energy constraint	p. 13
Production and reproduction	p. 17
Conclusion	p. 21
The transition from an organic to an energy-rich economy	p. 26
Agricultural growth, industrial growth, and transport improvements	p. 28
Manpower productivity in agriculture	p. 33
The energy revolution	p. 36
Conclusion	p. 47
Favourable developments	p. 53
Agricultural change and urbanisation	p. 55
Urban growth	p. 58
The consumer revolution	p. 68
The agricultural system	p. 73
The rise in agricultural output	p. 78
The London effect	p. 88
Conclusion	p. 90
Energy and transport	p. 91
The history of energy consumption	p. 91
Coal production and transport provision	p. 101
Other improvements in transport facilities	p. 108
Conclusion	p. 110
Occupational structure, aggregate income, and migration	p. 113
Occupational structure and migration	p. 113
Occupational change and aggregate income	p. 127
Aggregate income trends and migration	p. 135
Conclusion	p. 138
Production and reproduction	p. 140
The components of population change	p. 144
England in a wider setting: the concomitants of faster population growth	p. 152
Regional diversity	p. 163
Conclusion	p. 172
Retrospect of Part II as a whole	p. 175
What set England apart from her neighbours	p. 179
The timing and nature of change in the industrial revolution	p. 181
Preliminary considerations	p. 181
Relative growth rates	p. 187
The escape from the constraints of an organic economy	p. 193
The changing character of the growth surge	p. 196
Why the growth surge continued	p. 198
A summary of the character and timing of the changes which took place	p. 205
Modernisation and the industrial revolution	p. 211
Introductory comment	p. 211
England and the Netherlands	p. 216
The relationship between industrialisation and modernisation	p. 225
National entities and lopsided growth	p. 228
Conclusion	p. 232
Retrospective	p. 237
The industrial revolution and energy	p. 239
The energy revolution	p. 239
Pandora's jar again	p. 245
Appendix	p. 251
Bibliography	p. 258
Index	p. 268
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