Preface: why do we need another look at industrial society? -- The agricultural age: the achievements and limitations of several millennia of world history -- Building industrial society: the industrial revolution -- A new social framework -- Innovations in personal life: how deep was the...

"The Industrial Revolution is central to the teaching of economic history. It has also been key to historical research on the commercial expansion of Western Europe, the rise of factories, coal and iron production, the proletarianization of labour, and the birth and worldwide spread of...

Did the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars contribute to the Industrial Revolution? Recent scholarship argues warfare was an important factor in explaining Britain's industrialisation, by encouraging the invention and diffusion of key technologies with military applications. I re-examine...