The First Knowledge Economy: Human Capital and the European Economy, 1750–1850 by Margaret C. Jacob

Abstract

The First Knowledge Economy: Human Capital and European Economy, 1750-1850, by Margaret C. Jacob. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2014. ix, 257 pp. $108.95 Cdn (cloth), $39.95 Cdn (paper). Margaret C. Jacob provides a coherent account of reasons behind industrialization of four Western European countries with expert clarity, brevity, and instructiveness. Jacob argues that Britain was a pioneer in Industrial Revolution because for first time in history a productive combination of knowledge translation, human capital, and cultural ethos worked. The author rightly maintains that deployment of knowledge wielded by semi-literate tinkerers, (2) self-educated industrial innovators, and gentlemen-scientists was critical for establishment in Great Britain of first knowledge economy. In Jacob's words, Both lofty and mundane lay at heart of early industrial (126). This line of reasoning was partly inspired by Musson and Robinson's Science and Technology in Industrial Revolution (Toronto, 1969), which suggested that eighteenth-century Industrial Revolution in Britain was a result of both uneducated empiricism and intellectual movement characteristic of Enlightenment with its scientific spirit percolating top-down and its empirical knowledge diffusing bottom-up. Jacob significantly extends Musson and Robinson's considerations on development of steam engines in Birmingham (from Savery and Newcomen to Boulton and Watt) and technical processes of bleaching and dyeing of fabrics, manufacturing linen and wool in Leeds, and industrial-scope cotton making in Manchester. Determinedly brushing aside economic arguments in favour of social and material basis for Industrial Revolution, Jacob insists on crucial role of human capital in triggering rapid industrialization in Britain. However, outright dismissal of argument about role of abundance of easily extractable coal in Britain somewhat diminishes weight of Jacob's argument. The above-mentioned Musson and Robinson discuss approximate number of steam engines that helped to propel Industrial Revolution, particularly in proportion to water power (71-72). Consider as well that availability of easily accessible coal deposits, as German historian Rolf P. Sieferle argues in The Subterranean Forest: Energy Systems and Industrial Revolution (Munchen, 1982, transl. Cambridge, 2001), enabled people to turn increasingly to manufacture-oriented activities: by substituting wood for coal in burning, thus saving wood for construction, and increasing efficiency of smelting. Moreover, shift in land-use structure occurred because woodland was converted into pasture for sheep on which manufacturing of wool-cloth depended. Therefore, Jacob's argument suffers from underestimation of socio-economic factors and exaggeration of the growing pool of mechanically knowledgeable entrepreneurs and civil engineers (55) at end of eighteenth century. …