Poverty, Progress, and Population [Paperback]

Definitive account of England's transformation through industrial revolution, from one of the nation's leading historians.That the modern world is the child of the industrial revolution might be thought a commonplace. But our understanding of what constituted the industrial revolution has changed so fundamentally in recent decades that this statement can only be acceptable if both the nature and the timing of the industrial revolution are radically redefined. Sir E. A.Wrigley, the leading historian of industrial England, here sets out to expose the inadequacy of what was once the received wisdom and to suggest what he believes should stand in its place.That the modern world is the child of the industrial revolution might be thought a commonplace. But our understanding of what constituted the industrial revolution has changed so fundamentally in recent decades that this statement can only be acceptable if both the nature and the timing of the industrial revolution are radically redefined. Sir E. A.Wrigley, the leading historian of industrial England, here sets out to expose the inadequacy of what was once the received wisdom and to suggest what he believes should stand in its place.E.A. Wrigley, the leading historian of industrial England, exposes the inadequacy of what was once accepted wisdom regarding England's industrial revolution and suggests what he believes should replace it. He examines the issues from three viewpoints: economic growth; the transformation of the urban-rural balance; and demographic change in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In addition, he shows why England's early modern economy and society grew faster and more dynamically than its continental neighbors.Introduction: 1. In search of the industrial revolution; Part I. The Wellsprings of Growth: 2. The divergence of England: the growth of the English economy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; 3. Reflections on the history of energy supply, living standards and economil£)