Abstract:
The test aims at two objectives. First, it presents a new technique of time series analysis that allows to date historical processes: the recurrence plot. This technique was conceived originally to detect non- linearities and eventually chaotic dynamics in experimental signals in Physics, but it has been used recently to identify changes of dynamic patterns in time series in many other fields of the knowledge, for instance in financial data time series. The second objective is to contribute for the discussion about the first industrial revolution among the years of 1780 and 1830. This is exactly the traditional interpretation in economic history. That interpretation, however, has increasingly been objected by the new economic historians, which consider that the emergency of the first industrial potency of the word was a process very more evolutionary- in the sense of being incremental- than revolutionary- that is discontinuous. The text finally suggests (without however exploring the discussion ) that, to understand the processes of radical economical transformation and of him eventually to extract lessons, it is necessary to treat them of a perspective that attributes a larger role o the discontinuities involved in those processes.
Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Secretaria da ANPEC Rua Tiradentes, 17 - Ingá Niterói, RJ 24210-510 Brazil http://www.anpec.org.br/revista/