Africans and the Industrial Revolution in England: A Study in International Trade and Economic Development
Cambridge University Press, 6/13/2002
EAN 9780521811934, ISBN10: 0521811937
Hardcover, 600 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 3.8 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
Drawing on classical development theory and recent theoretical advances on the connection between expanding markets and technological developments, this book shows the critical role of expanding Atlantic commerce in the successful completion of England's industrialization process over the period 1650–1850. The contribution of Africans, the central focus of the book, is measured in terms of the role of diasporic Africans in large-scale commodity production in the Americas - of which expanding Atlantic commerce was a function - at a time when demographic and other socioeconomic conditions in the Atlantic basin encouraged small-scale production by independent populations, largely for subsistence. This is the first detailed study of the role of overseas trade in the Industrial Revolution. It revises inward-looking explanations that have dominated the field in recent decades, and shifts the assessment of African contribution away from the debate on profits.
1. Introduction
2. The English economy in the Longue Duree
3. A historiography of the first Industrial Revolution
4. Slave-based commodity production and the growth of Atlantic commerce
5. Britain and the supply of African slave labor to the Americas
6. The Atlantic slave economy and English shipping
7. The Atlantic slave economy and the development of financial institutions
8. African-produced raw materials and industrial production in England
9. Atlantic markets and the development of the major manufacturing sectors in England's industrialization
10. Conclusion.