The Industrial Revolution: The State, Knowledge and Global Trade, by William A. Ashworth

Abstract

In this ambitious book William Ashworth argues that the key cause of the industrial revolution in Britain was state action. Inspired by France and the Dutch Republic, in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century new burdens were imposed on the industrial sector, encompassing heavy excise demands, central oversight of production, protectionism and imperialism. Ashworth claims that they succeeded in the aim of provoking previously backward industries to develop significantly, overtaking their European and Asian competitors. Once such supremacy became evident in the 1780s, manufacturers pushed for a rolling back of the state, using intellectual developments in political economy and gaining allies from across propertied society eager for their tax bills to be reduced. In building this bold case, Ashworth explicitly challenges interpretations of the industrial revolution in Britain which pay little attention to public policy, especially those celebrating the importance of individualism, scientific knowledge and liberalism. In doing so, he sides with a number of recent studies which have argued that the rapid development of western capitalism, from at least the middle of the eighteenth century, depended heavily on exerting brute force over much of the rest of the globe.