The Formation of the British Technological Paradigm During the Industrial Revolution: The Three Leading Sectors

Haris Kitsikopoulos

A chapter in The First Industrial Revolution and Global Divergence, 2026, pp 35-98 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract This chapter reviews the invention and diffusion of key technologies in Britain’s leading sectors—mining, iron, and textiles—focusing on stationary steam engines. While many innovations relied on steam, others were unrelated or indirectly connected. Outside these sectors, technological impact was limited. The chapter highlights three features of Britain’s “technological paradigm”: (1) Steam power fostered a heuristic aimed at improving its performance and expanding applications; (2) Its introduction created imbalances within sectors, triggering challenge-and-response type of innovations, some directly tied to steam; (3) Steam converged with unrelated technologies, most notably combining primitive railways, which appeared c. 1600, with stationary engines to create modern railways.

Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:frochp:978-3-032-26359-9_2

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783032263599

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-032-26359-9_2

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Frontiers in Economic History from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().