Chapter 19 Chapter 17 Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution is not a revolution in science, or even one based directly or primarily on the application of science--by revolution we mean here a revolution like that in the dye-making industry that took place in the second half of the nineteenth century. A veritable revolution.But it was a revolution whose time span included the American and French revolutions and the chemical revolution, and, like the chemical revolution, it was then considered a revolution in human affairs.It must therefore be recognized in any history that the central themes of this revolution included a growing self-awareness and awareness of revolutions taking place outside the political sphere.

I do not wish here to delve into the nature and importance of the Industrial Revolution, a subject that has produced a considerable amount of scholarly literature.Such an inquiry would take us off topic to consider topics beyond the main focus of this book.In our present conditions, the Industrial Revolution is of interest primarily for its historiographical analogs (and dissimilarities), but also for the concept of scientific revolutions and revolutions in science. The main historiographical problem that the Industrial Revolution has in common with the Scientific Revolution or other revolutions in science is to determine exactly what the name means; and then there is the double-entendre question of when such a revolution happened and whether it actually happened.The change in views on these issues becomes clear when we compare the attitudes towards the Industrial Revolution in the Encyclopedia of Social Sciences (1932) and later in the International Encyclopedia of Social Sciences (1968).The former introduces the "Industrial Revolution" in thirteen folios, while the latter just tells readers the items "See Economic Growth, Economy and Society, Industrialization and Modernization".According to the new era of thinking about the social sciences, the industrial revolution is no longer a major category.In fact, of the four entries, only one ("industrialization") mentions the Industrial Revolution.Two paragraphs are devoted to this incident.The first paragraph states that the phrase "has long been used to refer to the period from approximately 1750 to 1825".During this period, "principles of mechanics, including steam power, were applied to manufactures in England", thereby causing "a marked change in the structure and growth of the economy".The second paragraph emphasizes that "among scholars there is no "consensus" on the question of the origins of the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain" and points out that recent academic opinion (Dean and Cole, 1962) "has little impact on the The characteristics of the classical period of the Industrial Revolution during the long-term evolution of industrial structure raise doubts" (p.253).

Even the older entry from 1932 notes at the outset that the name "is not recognized as satisfactory as a title" and is even referred to as "an unfortunately chosen title".It noted that "the main objection was to the use of the word revolution".Economic historians "use the phrase," but, in doing so, "make people more ambiguous and with many reservations" (p. 4): However, the 1932 Encyclopedia of Social Sciences admitted that "despite many ambiguities, the term has remained unchanged, and no better term has been coined to replace it".In a lecture on "The Idea of ​​Industrial Revolution," G. N．Clark pointed out far-fetchedly that when S. J．When Clapham "wrote the great authority on the history of British economic development from 1820" he "avoided the pedantic idea of ​​proposing an alternative term [industrial revolution], but (I have no intention of thinking) he never used this term".

Historians of science have varied opinions about the first use of the word "revolution" in science.Regarding the Industrial Revolution, Anna Besanson finds that Paul Mantox attributed the concept and name to Arnold Toynbee (uncle of the eminent historian) in 1905: from Arnold Toynbee"; and, about a decade later, W. E．Lappard (April 1914) assigns 1845 as "the date when the term was first published" and asserts that Friedrich Engels was the first "recognized user".More recently (1962), E. J．Hobsbawm writes in his Revolutionary Years, 1789-1848: "It is the concept of the Industrial Revolution that reflects its slower impact on Europe. That event existed in England before the word was coined." It was not invented until the nineteenth century by the English and French socialists - themselves an unprecedented group; this may have been deduced from the French political revolution" (p. 45).

The earliest explicit reference to the Industrial Revolution was perhaps in 1788, when Arthur Young noted that "a revolution was brewing".A typical example he considered was the application of the recently invented cotton loom to the wool industry.Others apparently used phrases such as "great and extraordinary," "extremely amazing," and "beyond human imagination" to describe new technologies and processes (including steam power, coking iron, new Pottery and the loom), although only Arthur Young actually used the term "revolution".But a year later, in 1789, events in France brought into vogue the concept and name of revolution in its present most common usage.And shortly thereafter, many people in France referred to a "revolution" in technology and craftsmanship, an industrial revolution.

We know much more about the history of the origin and development of the concept and name in France, because a thorough and adequate study of the subject (by Anna Besanson in 1921-1922) specifically explores French sources.By the 1820s, the term "Industrial Revolution" seems to have been fairly common in France.For example, in an article in Le Moniteur Universel dated August 27, 1827, the phrase "Grande Revolution Industrielle" appears in italics in the middle of the page.Prosper Delaunay described the replacement of flax culture (flaxculture) by sugar beet in 1829 as an example of "another casualty of this industrial revolution".Even earlier, reference was made to a revolution in industry, although the term "revolution industrielle" was not explicitly used.The earliest example found by Anna Bezanson is a rule proposed by Chambet of Erbeuf (on December 27, 1806).The rule recognizes that "this revolution has brought benefits to industry". In 1819, the French chemist Jean-Antoine Chaptal referred to the revolution in yarn manufacturing as "a great revolution in craftsmanship".In a famous discussion of the tariff in 1836, Lamartine noted that "it was a general revolution, commerce and industry in 1789" and thus compared "this general revolution" in the economic sphere with France in the political sphere. linked to the changes produced by the revolution.

Of particular importance to historians of science is the idea, advanced in France in the early nineteenth century, that applied scientific and technical know-how were decisive in the French Industrial Revolution.This is in stark contrast to the commonly held belief that in Britain the Industrial Revolution rested less on the application of science than on technical and mechanical ingenuity.Anna Besanson cites many examples, one of which is from an 1804 work on the dyeing process: In this respect a welcome revolution has taken place among us; our factories are no longer entrusted to ignorant workers; home, moreover, one must value them in order to advance the progress of practical crafts.

In 1837, the Industrial Revolution was clearly in the literature of economic history—J. A．Blanqui's History of Political Economy.Within a decade, Friedrich Engels had linked the rise of the proletariat to the Industrial Revolution.The opening paragraph of his "Condition of the Working Class in England" (1845, English translation, 1858, 9) reads: The history of the British working class begins in the second half of the eighteenth century with the invention of the steam engine and the cotton processing machine.It is known that these inventions gave impetus to the Industrial Revolution, which [was as much a social revolution as it was an economic revolution] at the same time brought about a general revolution in civil society, whose world-historical significance is only now beginning Be recognized clearly.

Karl Marx used the term "industrielle Revolution" at least twice in Capital, but he neither drew special attention to the term nor elaborated on its meaning; Incidentally, something the reader can understand" (Clarke 1953, 14). Arnold Toynbee's posthumous Lectures on the British Industrial Revolution (1884) set the tone for later historians who saw in the experience of British industrialization a pattern of revolutions analogous to history's great political revolutions. example.Toynbee chose 1760 as the date for the beginning of that revolution, while other authors originally preferred his period of 1750-1760 as the date, while others (such as Johann Ulrich Ne husband) traced the beginning of the revolution to the middle of the sixteenth century.The extent and extent of Toynbee's influence became apparent early in the century; at this time, Paul Mantox's important synthesis, The Industrial Revolution of the Eighteenth Century (1905; English translation, 1928; 1964, p. 12th edition) states on its first page that Toynbee coined the name.Since then, a large number of books and articles have taken the Industrial Revolution as the main topic, and the Industrial Revolution even appears prominently in the titles of the books and articles, although there is considerable disagreement about the meaning of this term.For example, in a work "The Industrial Revolution 1760-1830", first published in 1948 and reprinted repeatedly, T. S．Ashton (who followed Toynbee's date of 1760 as the beginning of the Industrial Revolution) expressed doubts about the validity of the term "revolution" (because "revolutions involve suddenness of change that is not actually characteristic of the process of economic development") and Insists that "changes are not just changes in industry, but also changes in society and thought".One of the problems about this revolution is that this industrial revolution is not like a political revolution but a scientific revolution, and it lasted for a long time, including about seven or eighty years in two centuries.Moreover, the "revolution" was not entirely an industrial revolution, since some of the most "revolutionary" aspects of the industrial revolution happened to be demographic (changes in population size and traditional ratios of rural and urban population), agricultural and Economic (growth of commerce, trade, modern competition system) aspects.

At least for those writers who think "industrial revolution" is a meaningful concept, it seems to be very hotly debated.We shall see in Chapter 26 some examples (Butterfield, Smith, Ornstein) of great debates about scientific revolutions similar to those expressed by Cipola (1973, 7): In less than three generations, between 1780 and 1850, a far-reaching revolution without precedent in human history changed the face of Britain.Since then, the world is no longer uniform.Historians often use or misuse the word "revolution" to mean a radical change, but no revolution has ever been so excitingly "revolutionary" as the Industrial Revolution—perhaps the Neolithic Revolution was a exception.Both of these revolutions changed the course of history, and each of these revolutions, so to speak, caused a sudden change in the course of history.The Neolithic revolution transformed mankind from a scattered group of savage bands of hunters (when, according to Hobbes, life was "solitary, poor, dirty, savage, and short") to A transformation of a somewhat interdependent agricultural social group.The Industrial Revolution transformed man from farmer-shepherd to operator of machines powered by inanimate energy.

Other examples include: the Industrial Revolution "transformed the lives of Westerners, the nature of Western society and its relationship to the rest of the world in less than two hundred years" (Landers 1969, 1); For the first time in human history, the productive forces of society are freed from the shackles that restrain their own development, so they can continue to develop rapidly, so as to achieve the unlimited increase of people, goods and public utilities today" (Hobsbawm 1962 , 45).Hobsbawm (1968, 13) asserts: "The Industrial Revolution marked the most fundamental transformation of human life in recorded world history".Fairly mundane examples can be found even in Toynbee's book.The first two sentences of the chapter dedicated to "the main features of the revolution" are; "The essence of the industrial revolution is to replace the previous medieval rules that controlled and determined the production and distribution of wealth with competition. Therefore, it is not only the most important in British history. It is one of the most important facts, and to it is owed the birth and development of the two great systems of thought in Europe—economic science and its counterpart, socialism" (p. 58).In this chapter, Toynbee stresses the rapid growth of population and the "agrarian revolution," which "played a role in the great industrial revolution of the late eighteenth century in manufacturing—a field in which more attention is generally paid to revolutions—" — has an equally enormous effect" (p. 61). At the beginning of the 20th century, some writers began to imagine other industrial revolutions. The Encyclopedia of Social Sciences (1932) draws attention to two works.In both works, the authors see the post-World War I "efforts towards rationalization and changes due to the advent and advancement of electricity and new chemical processes" as "the new industrial revolution" (W. M. King) and "The Second Industrial Revolution" (H.S. Jevons).Both works also suggest that other industrial revolutions had occurred even before this one began.As early as 1894, J. R．Mrs. Green wrote about the Industrial Revolution in fifteenth-century England, and in our own time, H.Van Weerwijk had considered an "industrial revolution" in the eleventh century, and V.Gordon Child, in his writings, speaks of an "industrial revolution" at the end of the Bronze Age.The process by which this assumption produced other industrial revolutions is not dissimilar to the discussion among historians of science that there have been more than one scientific revolutions (see Chapter 6 above). The Industrial Revolution is also similar to the Scientific Revolution in that some historians have tended to see both revolutions as a continuous process, extending into the 20th century and even today.Thus Eric Hobsbawm (1962, 46) notes that the Industrial Revolution "is not really an event with a beginning and an end. It is pointless to ask when it will end, since its essence is that Since then, revolutionary change has become the norm, and it continues". In light of these shifting concepts, almost all writers on the Industrial Revolution recognized the need to refine their terminology.David Landers (1969, 1) discusses this issue in considerable detail and extensively.He pointed out: "Industrial revolution (lower case) the two words usually refer to the complexity of technological innovation. The technical innovation mentioned here replaces human skills with machines and human and animal strength with inanimate forces, thus contributing to the The transition from handicrafts to manufacturing, and from it a modern economics".This "industrial revolution" "has transformed many countries, though to varying degrees." Landes further stated: Finally, Landers noticed a third meaning that arises when capitalizing two words.The term Industrial Revolution usually "refers to the first historical evidence of a transition from an agricultural and handicraft economy to one dominated by industry and machine-building".This industrial revolution "began in England in the 18th century and then spread in various ways to the countries of the Continent and several other areas overseas". When G． N．When Clarke (1953, 29) gave a lecture on the concept of the Industrial Revolution in Glasgow in 1952, he could not help asserting that "from the point of view of historiography, the idea of ​​the Industrial Revolution has decayed": In particular, Clark found, the Industrial Revolution had precedents, so it had no obvious beginnings.Also, the actual timetable is different in different - though close - locations or occasions.Finally, he asked, what revolution might have begun in the seventeenth century and still be unfinished by the twentieth century?As we shall see, these same considerations almost always arise when twentieth-century historians delve into scientific revolutions (below, Chapter 26).