Steam Power and British Industrialization to 1860

Notes:

Draws on the writer's doctoral thesis 'Some Economic Aspects of the Diffusion of Steam Power in the British Isles to 1856, with Special Reference to the Textile Industries', Oxford, 1974. 'The primary aim of the present study is to present the first detailed critique of the 'energy crisis' interpretation that has been shown to be implicit or explicit in many of the best known economic histories of the industrial revolution'. Structured in four parts: 1] 'The context' - 'Introduction' / 'The engine - technology and scale' / 'The economic issues'; 2] 'The evaluation' - 'Difficulties of best practice techniques' / 'The backward linkages' / 'The social savings'; 3] 'Studies in the application of steam power' - 'Steam power and the cotton industry' / 'Textiles, steam and speed' / 'Cornish mining and the Cornish engine'; 4] 'Perspectives' - 'The international context in the early nineteenth century'