MAKING OF THE MODERN WORLD
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION: ORIGINS
Tuesday 27 October 2015 11-12am
Tutor: Giorgio Riello, g.riello@warwick.ac.uk
What was the industrial revolution? How did industrialization affect technology, work, power and
overall economic change? Was the industrial revolution a fundamental break in the history of the
British and European economies? Or was it just a British phenomenon? How different was the preindustrial economy from the industrial economy? Does the industrial revolution mark the beginnings
of modernity? Is it possible to distinguish design as a distinct activity only after the coming of the
factory?
1. The importance of the industrial revolution
 The ‘revolutionary’ nature of the Industrial Revolution
 Industrial revolution and ‘modernity’
 UK, Europe and The World
2. The Revolutions
 demographic increase
 urbanisation
 agricultural revolution
 commercial revolution
 Transport
3. The Industrial Revolution
 General features
 Comments from foreign visitors
 Different explanations
4. Explanation 1: The IR as Economic growth
 Cotton textile production
 Richard Arkwright
 Robert Cartwright
 Technological innovation
 Critiques
 Factories
5. Explanation 2: The Age of Manufactures
 ‘modern’ and ‘traditional’
 Concept 1: proto-industrialisation
 Concept 2: industrious revolution
Table 1. Urban population during the industrial revolution in Britain
(in thousands)
Birmigham
Manchester
London
Norwich
Liverpool
Glasgow
24 (1750)
43 (1788)
36 (1752)
34 (1773)
-
1801
1851
1901
71
75
1117
37
78
77
265
338
2685
375
760
645
6586
762