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Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 338.0942
EAN num: 9780773508408
ISBN number: 0773508406
Label: McGill-Queen's University Press
Manufacturer: McGill-Queen's University Press
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 331
Printing Date: 1991-07
Publishing house: McGill-Queen's University Press
Sale Popularity Level: 3164020
Studio: McGill-Queen's University Press
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Product Description:
Addressing the question of why the Industrial Revolution occurred very first in England, this study demonstrates the crucial role played by the development of a nation-wide network of land and water transport. It rejects revisionist arguments that downplay the significance of transportation to the Industrial Revolution, underrate the amplitude and influence of the English Industrial Revolution, and deny French economic retardation. The author develops a model that establishes causal links between transportation and industrialization and shows how improvements in transportation could have a beneficial effect on an economy such as that of 18th-century England. This model shows the Industrial Revolution to involve four primary phenomena: increased regional specialization, the emergence of new industries, an expanding scale of production and an accelerated rate of technological innovation. Through detailed analysis, Szostak explicates the effects of the different systems of transportation in France and England on the four components of the Industrial Revolution. He outlines the development in late 18th century England of a reliable system of all-weather transportation, made up of turnpike roads and canals, that was far superior to the system in France at the same period. He goes on to examine in detail the iron, textile and pottery industries in each country, focusing on the effect of the quality of available transportation on the decisions of individual entrepreneurs and innovators. Szostak shows that in every case these industries were more highly developed in England than in France.
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This is a comparative approach between Britain and France to promote the "effects of England's superior transportation system on the process of industrialization" and to demonstrate "the links between transport improvement and technological innovation."(3)
The infrastructure already in place in England surpassed that of France and is a reason why the Industrial Revolution began there and not in France. Improvements made in the early and mid-eighteenth century allowed and "induced the Industrial Revolution."(6) Szostak states: "It is this early modern transport system - the combination of an extensive network of waterways and of suitable roads - which was necessary for the English Industrial Revolution" and further that "the process of transport improvement can be traced back for centuries. Doing so is essential to the argument that improved transport was a cause rather than the result of industrialization."(6)
Szostak clearly shows how transport effected industrialization and devised a model to describe how transportation influenced innovation. First of all, invoking Adam Smith, transportation encouraged wider markets and the greater division of labor. Additionally changes in the method of transportation influenced distribution patterns and encouraged the organization of carrier firms and services. With improved speed and reliability come cheaper raw materials from which increased production was possible. "A year-round network of both road and water transport is called early modern transport here because I believe it is the establishment of such a system that marks the greatest transformation in the English transport sector. It is precisely because roads and canals and rivers are able to transport goods so efficiently that Fogel (1964) is able to obtain such a low estimate for the gain from railways."(42) [Fogel's (1964) monumental study of American railroads hypothesized there would result at most only a five percent loss of national output without them.]
Szostak argues that the iron and textile industries, early internal markets of primary importance for the Industrial Revolution, were promoted by the availability of then existing internal transportation. "The history of the iron industry has all too often been viewed as just a story of new technology. Instead, it should be viewed essentially as a tale of transport-induced changes."(137) In relation to textiles "the only reasonable explanation is that the drop in the costs of transport and distribution was sufficient to increase the market for textiles greatly. This widening of the market allowed manufacturers to specialize while expanding their scale of operation, and opening the way for cost-saving measures which allowed output to expand even more."(169) The transport improvements effected these products because "regional specialization, increased scale of production, the emergence of new industries, and a dramatic increase in the rate of technological innovation."(232)
Britain, unlike France, Szotak argues, already had the existing infrastructure, to accommodate growing production and market expansion. It was the roads and waterways, which already existed, that induced the Industrial Revolution.
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