2011•Oxford University Press eBooksRequires access
3. The Industrial Revolution
Robert Colby Allen
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Abstract
‘The Industrial Revolution’ shows that the period from 1760 to 1850 was a turning point in world history, for it inaugurated the era of sustained economic growth. Technological change was the motor of the Industrial Revolution, but why did it happen in England rather than the Netherlands, France, China or India? Britain's high-wage, cheap-energy economy made it profitable for British firms to invent and use the breakthrough technologies of the Industrial Revolution. In coal, Britain had the cheapest energy in the world, which was cheaper compared to labour than anywhere else worldwide. The development of the Britain's cotton industry and the invention of the steam engine are also discussed.