Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables
- Preface
- Chapter 1 Introduction
- Chapter 2 The English Economy in the Longue Durée
- Chapter 3 A Historiography of the First Industrial Revolution
- Chapter 4 Slave-Based Commodity Production and the Growth of Atlantic Commerce
- Chapter 5 Britain and the Supply of African Slave Labor to the Americas
- Chapter 6 The Atlantic Slave Economy and English Shipping
- Chapter 7 The Atlantic Slave Economy and the Development of Financial Institutions
- Chapter 8 African-Produced Raw Materials and Industrial Production in England
- Chapter 9 Atlantic Markets and the Development of the Major Manufacturing Sectors in England's Industrialization
- Chapter 10 Conclusion
- Appendixes
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 10 - Conclusion
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables
- Preface
- Chapter 1 Introduction
- Chapter 2 The English Economy in the Longue Durée
- Chapter 3 A Historiography of the First Industrial Revolution
- Chapter 4 Slave-Based Commodity Production and the Growth of Atlantic Commerce
- Chapter 5 Britain and the Supply of African Slave Labor to the Americas
- Chapter 6 The Atlantic Slave Economy and English Shipping
- Chapter 7 The Atlantic Slave Economy and the Development of Financial Institutions
- Chapter 8 African-Produced Raw Materials and Industrial Production in England
- Chapter 9 Atlantic Markets and the Development of the Major Manufacturing Sectors in England's Industrialization
- Chapter 10 Conclusion
- Appendixes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
IN THE MID-1950s Simon Kuznets, the Nobel prize economist, was requested by the United Nations to compare “the present situation in underdeveloped countries with the earlier situation of the more developed countries, with special reference to the factors that seem … to be critical in respect of potentialities of development.” Kuznets started his task with a rather long statement of the difficulty in chronologically identifying periods in the history of the economically advanced countries of the West during which their situation was comparable with that of the then underdeveloped countries. The difficulty was partly self-imposed by the initially chosen criterion for the comparison – a period in history during which the industrialized Western countries,
were underdeveloped, i.e. lagged behind the then leading economies; when their backwardness relative to the leaders was as marked as that of the underdeveloped countries of today; when their per capita incomes were as low and material deprivation and misery were as widespread as in the latter. If so and if such an earlier situation were found, could we discern the strategic factors that produced the economic leadership of today?
Kuznets recognized that for several centuries up to the fifteenth the Western economies “lagged behind most of the economies of the Near and Far East,” but considered the period too distant for him to handle competently. Ultimately, he settled for relative levels of industrial development, measured in terms of the ratios of the labor force employed in agriculture and industry, to determine the comparable situation for his task.
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- Africans and the Industrial Revolution in EnglandA Study in International Trade and Economic Development, pp. 473 - 486Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2002