The size and strength of the Royal Navy experienced a punctuated evolution into the largest and most powerful Navy in the world by 1815. Most historians tend to represent its superiority in conflicts at sea as an indication of several factors that would be conceptualized by economists as...

My essay surveys a range of printed secondary sources going back to publications of the day (and includes research in primary sources) in order to revive a traditional and unresolved debate on economic connexions between the French and Industrial Revolutions. It argues that, on balance, the...