14
Why Europe? Why Then?
If we were to prophesy that in the year 1930 a population of fifty million, bet
ter fed, clad, and lodged than the English of our time, will cover these islands,
that Sussex and Huntingdonshire will be wealthier than the wealthiest parts
of the West Riding of Yorkshire now are... that machines constructed on
principles yet undiscovered will be in every house... many people would
think us insane.
—MACAULAY, "Southey's Colloquies on Society" (1830)^1W
hy Industrial Revolution there and then? The question is really
twofold. First, why and how did any country break through the
crust of habit and conventional knowledge to this new mode of pro
duction? After all, history shows other examples of mechanization and
use of inanimate power without producing an industrial revolution.
One thinks of Sung China (hemp spinning, ironmaking), medieval Eu
rope (water- and windmill technologies), of early modern Italy (silk
throwing, shipbuilding), of the Holland of the "Golden Age." Why
now, finally, in the eighteenth century?
Second, why did Britain do it and not some other nation?
The two questions are one. The answer to each needs the other.
That is the way of history.
Turning to the first, I would stress buildup—the accumulation of
knowledge and knowhow; and breakthrough—reaching and passing
thresholds. We have already noted the interruption of Islamic and Chi
nese intellectual and technological advance, not only the cessation of
improvement but the institutionalization of the stoppage. In Europe,
just the other way: we have continuing accumulation. To be sure, in
Europe as elsewhere, science and technology had their ups and downs,