This book began as the Ellen McArthur lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge in the Lent Term 1987. The invitation extended to me by the Managers of the Fund to deliver the lectures was both an honour that I deeply appreciated, and an opportunity that was most welcome in that I had been turning over in my mind for some time a topic that seemed appropriate for the lectures. Receiving the invitation also obliged me to make a decision over which I might otherwise have deliberated much longer. After many years spent in work principally concerned with the population history of England, I had returned increasingly to my first main research interest, the better understanding of the industrial revolution. I was keen to look again both at some very general issues of interpretation and at a number of substantive matters where there seemed hope of progress. My dilemma lay in deciding between a large-scale general book on the industrial revolution to be written only after carrying out the substantive work and a short, programmatic review. The former could not have been written for several years; the latter, since it could be written in advance of carrying out most of the empirical work, could be embarked on forthwith. The Managers' invitation decided me in favour of the latter.

There was a further decision to be made when the lectures had been delivered.