A Synoptic View of the Industrial Revolution in Theoretical Perspective

Purushottam Narayan Mathur
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Purushottam Narayan Mathur: University College of Wales

Chapter 4 in Why Developing Countries Fail to Develop, 1991, pp 62-76 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract In an international environment of mercantile capitalism, colonialism and imperialism, the present industrialised countries in general and the United Kingdom in particular embarked on an ‘Industrial Revolution’. This industrial revolution was basically characterised by the use of fossil energy (coal, oil, etc.) instead of biological energy (humans, horses, oxen, etc.) for the large-scale production of goods for human use. The supplanting of human and animal power by coal, oil and electrical energy greatly extended human capability: it was a quantum leap forward in the evolution of human society in its everyday business, which should be ranked with such milestones in human progress as development of agriculture and domestication of cattle in about the tenth millennium BC or of irrigation technology in the valleys of the Nile, Tigris-Euphrates and Indus in the fourth millennium BC which led to the growth of the first civilisations.

Keywords: Industrial Revolution; Risk Capital; Government Interference; Social Overhead Capital; Animal Power (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1991
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-349-21343-6_5

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DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-21343-6_5

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