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Has anyone read a good book on why the Industrial Revolution did happen? What were the necessary precursors, politically, economically, technologically, scientifically, culturally, before you start trying to automate all the things?
1) Outlaw slavery 2) There is no step two
Has anyone read a good book on why the Industrial Revolution did happen? What were the necessary precursors, politically, economically, technologically, scientifically, culturally, before you start trying to automate all the things?
1) Outlaw slavery 2) There is no step two
Rome was still primarily a slave/servant based economy, and one based on expansion and conquest. They lacked the mathematical and scientific foundations to radically change metallurgy, chemistry, and the other basics of industry. This article focuses a lot on economic possibilities and social change necessary for a revolution, while largely ignoring larger issues. You cant have an industrial revolution without then r…
Could such advances have been possible if fueled by an extremely wealthy family? It only takes one person w/ resources & ambition to say "I want " to kickstart a movement. Say Marcus Licinius Crassus [1], Roman bajillionaire, dreams of a steam-powered engine in 73 BC, 20-ish years before his death. And instead of duking it out with Spartacus, Crassus decides to make building a steam engine his singular focus in life.…
Rome was still primarily a slave/servant based economy, and one based on expansion and conquest. They lacked the mathematical and scientific foundations to radically change metallurgy, chemistry, and the other basics of industry. This article focuses a lot on economic possibilities and social change necessary for a revolution, while largely ignoring larger issues. You cant have an industrial revolution without then r…
Could such advances have been possible if fueled by an extremely wealthy family? It only takes one person w/ resources & ambition to say "I want " to kickstart a movement. Say Marcus Licinius Crassus [1], Roman bajillionaire, dreams of a steam-powered engine in 73 BC, 20-ish years before his death. And instead of duking it out with Spartacus, Crassus decides to make building a steam engine his singular focus in life.…
I think (but I am not a historian) that the Roman mind-set wasn't turned toward progress in the form of machines. I think that was because they didn't have real science. And I think that was because of their gods.
Oppenheimer, in his history of science, said that science couldn't have begun outside of Christianity. The Christian perspective was that, because God is there, and God is someone who uses reason, and God created the universe, therefore the universe could be understood through reason. That was the soil in which the scientific revolution started. But the Roman gods were too arbitrary and capricious to give any certainty of a reasonable universe, and so the Romans never developed real science (despite knowing many of the facts that Europeans knew by 1500).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
1) Outlaw slavery 2) There is no step two
That's a very simplistic (bit naive IMHO) POV.
Rome was still primarily a slave/servant based economy, and one based on expansion and conquest. They lacked the mathematical and scientific foundations to radically change metallurgy, chemistry, and the other basics of industry. This article focuses a lot on economic possibilities and social change necessary for a revolution, while largely ignoring larger issues. You cant have an industrial revolution without then r…
Could such advances have been possible if fueled by an extremely wealthy family? It only takes one person w/ resources & ambition to say "I want " to kickstart a movement. Say Marcus Licinius Crassus [1], Roman bajillionaire, dreams of a steam-powered engine in 73 BC, 20-ish years before his death. And instead of duking it out with Spartacus, Crassus decides to make building a steam engine his singular focus in life.…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a very simplistic (bit naive IMHO) POV.
I agree it's simplistic, but that's not particularly overly naive. The kickstart of the industrial revolution very much benefited from the disappearance of a large "free" labor source, and it was probably one of the primary social factors that worked in conjunction with the technological foundations at the time.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could such advances have been possible if fueled by an extremely wealthy family? It only takes one person w/ resources & ambition to say "I want " to kickstart a movement. Say Marcus Licinius Crassus [1], Roman bajillionaire, dreams of a steam-powered engine in 73 BC, 20-ish years before his death. And instead of duking it out with Spartacus, Crassus decides to make building a steam engine his singular focus in life.…
Possibly Crassus could have gotten a toy out of it. A steam engine working enough to start an industrial revolution? I doubt it. I think (but I am not a historian) that the Roman mind-set wasn't turned toward progress in the form of machines. I think that was because they didn't have real science. And I think that was because of their gods. Oppenheimer, in his history of science, said that science couldn't have begun…
The ancient world--not just Rome, but across the board--didn't have what you have chosen to provincially define as "real science" because not having the tools to build the tools to disprove theories tends to put a damper on things. Instead they had sciences based on what they could and did measure: geometry and astronomy are explicitly called out by Vitruvius as being necessary topics for an architect to understand.
I mean, hell. Greek and Roman thinkers (and, indeed, most Roman science was Greek) defined the scientific method as being a deterministic thing, induction via observation, in the first place.
Has anyone read a good book on why the Industrial Revolution did happen? What were the necessary precursors, politically, economically, technologically, scientifically, culturally, before you start trying to automate all the things?
* New economic and political philosophies(merchantilism, Machiavelli's works, Magna Carta)
* Theological developments(Islam, Protestantism) and the various resulting conflicts as motivators for modernity
* Access to New World flora and fauna(new crops and livestock) increasing the ability of the nascent industrial state to support large populations at a lower cost
* Refinements to math and science that built on or revised ideas from antiquity(e.g. Newtonian physics, cell theory)
* Advanced craftsmanship in certain crucial precursor technologies like lenses, gears, etc. A lot has been made of how the industrial world started operating on a fast-paced timetable, but the Romans had no pocketwatches.