Osborne Roger. Iron, Steam & Money: The Making of the Industrial Revolution

Vintage Digital, 2013. — 404 p. — ISBN 978-1845952129.In late eighteenth-century Britain a handful of men brought about the greatest transformation in human history. Inventors, industrialists and entrepreneurs ushered in the age of powered machinery and the factory, and thereby changed the whole of human society, bringing into being new methods of social and economic organisation, new social classes, and new political forces. The Industrial Revolution also dramatically altered humanity's relation to the natural world and embedded the belief that change, not stasis, is the necessary backdrop for human existence.
Iron, Steam and Money tells the thrilling story of those few decades, the moments of inspiration, the rivalries, skulduggery and death threats, and the tireless perseverance of the visionaries who made it all happen. Richard Arkwright, James Watt, Richard Trevithick and Josiah Wedgwood are among the giants whose achievements and tragedies fill these pages. In this authoritative study Roger Osborne also shows how and why the revolution happened, revealing pre-industrial Britain as a surprisingly affluent society, with wealth spread widely through the population, and with craft industries in every town, village and front parlour. The combination of disposable income, widespread demand for industrial goods, and a generation of time-served artisans created the unique conditions that propelled humanity into the modern world.
The industrial revolution was arguably the most important episode in modern human history; Iron, Steam and Money reminds us of its central role, while showing the extraordinary excitement of those tumultuous decades.Prologue: Britain on the verge
Invention
The Watershed
Inventors and Inventing
Navigating the Patent System
Coal
Fuelling the Revolution
Power
Watermills and Wheels
Steam before Newcomen
The Newcomen Engine
James Watt’s Revolution
Richard Trevithick: Steam into Motion
Cotton
The Rise of Cotton
Spinning and Weaving
Richard Arkwright: The King of Cotton
Arkwright on Trial
Manchester: The First Industrial City
Iron
Abraham Darby’s Blast Furnace
Henry Cort and Cheap Iron
Crucible Steel
Transport
Rivers and Roads
Canals and Locomotives
Money
Producers and Consumers
Money for Industry
Adam Smith and the Industrial Economy
Work
The Nature of Work and the Rise of the Factory
Life in the Industrial City
Epilogue: Britain in the 1830s
NotesSelect Bibliography