The Age of Manufactures, 1700-1820, Second Edition: Industry, Innovation and Work in Britain - Softcover

"Maxine Berg is...one of the finest and most valuable economic historians in the world. At a time when the field has become increasingly mathematical and impersonal, devoted to aggregates and averages and indifferent to human beings, Maxine is one of the few who can read the numbers while paying attention to the people behind them.." -David S. Landes, Harvard University "Economic and social historians alike will welcome a book which provides an up-to-date survey of workshop manufacture in the period 1700-1820 ... the book is based on wide reading and continually provokes thought on the basic issues.." -Economic History Review

This new edition of The Age of Manufactures provides an exciting alternative overview of the eighteenth-century British economy. Recent macro-economic history has discounted many of the achievements of the Industrial Revolution. Maxine Berg argues that at the heart of the Industrial Revolution, we find many new consumer industries employing a women's workforce, and bringing with them a rich diversity of technological and organizational change. Four new chapters explore recent perspectives on: * The Industrial Revolution * Eighteenth century industries * Machines and manual labour * The rise of the factory system Statistical summaries, and a thorough revision of the whole text have refreshed and enhanced this well-established and important contribution to British ecomonic history.