The Enlightened Economy: An Economic History of Britain 1700-1850
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This book focuses on the importance of ideological and institutional factors in the rapid development of the British economy during the years between the Glorious Revolution and the Crystal Palace Exhibition. Joel Mokyr shows that we cannot understand the Industrial Revolution without recognizing the importance of the intellectual sea changes of Britain’s Age of Enlightenment. In a vigorous discussion, Mokyr goes beyond the standard explanations that credit geographical factors, the role of markets, politics, and society to show that the beginnings of modern economic growth in Britain depended a great deal on what key players knew and believed, and how those beliefs affected their economic behavior. He argues that Britain led the rest of Europe into the Industrial Revolution because it was there that the optimal intersection of ideas, culture, institutions, and technology existed to make rapid economic growth achievable. His wide-ranging evidence covers sectors of the British economy often neglected, such as the service industries. The Wall Street Journal “It is impossible to do justice to the subtlety and detail of "The Enlightened Economy"; it is the product of a lifetime of research and thought, and stands as a landmark work of history...its perceptive examination of the birth of economic prosperity holds many arresting insights for our fraught economic times” –Trevor Butterworth, Wall Street Journal— Trevor Butterworth
MapsIntroduction Ideology, Knowledge, and Institutions in Economic Change 11 Prologue: the British Economy in 1700 132 Enlightenment and Economy 303 Useful knowledge and Technology 404 An Enlightened Political Economy 635 Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution 796 The Origins of British Technological Leadership 997 Technological Change in the Industrial Revolution 1248 Britain and the World: An Open Economy 1459 Agriculture in the Age of Enlightenment 17110 The Service Sectors: Commerce and Transport 19811 The Service Sectors: Finance and Personal Services 22012 Progress and Productivity 25513 Demographic Transformation in the Age Of Enlightenment 27914 Gender and Family in an Enlightened Economy 30915 Factories and Firms in an Age of Technological Progress 33816 Social Norms and a Civil Economy 36817 Formal Institutions: The State and the Economy 39218 Lving Standards and Inequality 44919 The Results: The British Economy in 1850 475References 490Index 533
