A Short History of the British Industrial Revolution

This is a particularly welcome account, not least because it asks the key question of why Britain came first.

Providing the global context for industrialisation also helps Emma Griffin in her search for a middle way between viewing European industrialisation as a unitary process following a universal pattern, and regarding the industrialisation of each nation as a discrete event.

In doing so, she shifts the discussion away from pre-existing conditions and the roles of capital and the state, towards the energy economy and, more specifically, the role of coal.

Griffin presents 1760–1820 as a period in which industries were transformed as manufacturers adapted existing processes to the potential offered by coal. For example, the switch from charcoal to coal in the 1760s brought a rapid improvement in the fortunes of Britain’s iron industry.

So why did so many other nations fail to witness such advances at this time?

The answer, says Griffin, may lie in wage levels. She points out that so long as labour was plentiful and cheap, most of the population had scant disposable income, while manufacturers had little incentive to innovate.

She suggests that this is a possible explanation for why the restructuring of industry that was required if coal was to replace wood did not occur in populous China until the late 20th century.

The contrast between Britain and China should also encourage a focus on the role of the state and the culture of governance, and here Griffin’s work requires extension. Nevertheless, this effective study can be recommended. It will prove of particular value to students and has much to offer to general readers.

Jeremy Black is author of Eighteenth-Century Britain (Palgrave second edition, 2008)