The Transformation of England by Peter Mathias - 9781138865075

Taylor & Francis

Peter Mathias\u2019s subject is the creation in late eighteenth-century England of the industrial system \u2013 and thereby the present world. That unique conjuncture poses the sharpest questions about the nature of industrialization, social change and historical explanation, issues that are his principal scholarly concern. For many readers these collected studies will be as indispensable as the author\u2019s general introduction, The First Industrial Nation, whether for the richness of their material or the freedom and subtlety of his analysis.\nThese fascinating essays are divided into two groups: general themes, the \u2018uniqueness\u2019 in Europe of the industrial revolution, capital formation, taxation, the growth of skills, science and technical change, leisure and wages, diagnoses of poverty; and topics, the social structure, the industrialization of brewing, coinage, agriculture and the drink industries, advances in public health and the armed forces, British and American pu.