REVIEW SECTION ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN BRITAIN SINCE THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION:A REVIEW ARTICLE
| Date | 01 June 1975 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9485.1975.tb00059.x |
| Published date | 01 June 1975 |
| Author | Neil K. Buxton |
Scottish Journal of Poltitical Economy
Vol.
XXII,
No.
2,
June 1975
REVIEW
SECTION
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN BRITAIN
SINCE
THE
INDUSTRIAL
REVOLUTION
:
A
REVIEW
ARTICLE
NEIL
K.
B. L. ANDERSON (?2ditor),
Capital Ac-
cumiilation in the Industrial Revolution,
Readings in Economic History
&
Theory
(London, J. M. Dent
&
Sons, 1974),
pp. xxvii
+
212,
f2.95.
R.
M. REEVE,
The Industrial Revolution
1750-1850,
London History Studies
No.
7
(London, University of London Press,
1971), pp. 271, f1.90.
P.
L. PAYNE,
British Entrepreneurship
in
the Nineieenth Century,
Studies in
Economic History (London, Macmillan
for the Economic History Society, 1974)
pp. 80,
f0.65.
P.
S.
BAGWELL,
The Transport Revolu-
tion from
1770
(London,
B.
T.
Batsford
Ltd., 1974) pp. 460, f3.00.
C.
P.
KINDLEBERGER,
The
World in
Depression
1929-193!1
(London, Allen
Lane the Penguin Press, 1973), pp. 336,
f4.00.
G.
A.
PHILLIPS
&
It
T.
MADDOCK,
The Growth
of
the British
Economy
1918-
1968,
Studies in Economics
No.
8, edt.
Charles Carter (London, George Allen
&
Unwin Ltd., 1973), pp. 188, f3.50.
‘
The pace of development quickens.’
This stock phrase,
so
frequently used in
those books studying Britain’s economic
growth from the Industrial Revolution,
could it seems be equally well applied to
the spate
of
literature that continues to
pour out on the subject. The collection
reviewed here is
a
fairly representative
sample
of
what has appeared over the
recent past, very mixed in terms
of
quality
and depth of treatment. Significantly all
are written from
the
‘traditional’ stand-
point. Although, British economic history
has recently experienced
the
first en-
croachments
of
the ‘new’, so-called econo-
metric type
of
study, it would seem that
currently there is little danger of
a
deep
divide emerging within the discipline.
BUXTON
Hence, the experience
of
America where
the two camps of ‘new economic
his-
torians’ and ‘others’ appear
to
co-exist
rather uneasily with each other seems un-
likely to be repeated in this country. This
is not to say that all the texts specified
above are
of
a
purely descriptive
or
narrative nature. On the contrary, they
differ widely in terms
of
economic input
and rjgour
of
analysis. It does mean,
however, that the use
of
quantitative tech-
niques and models is not reflected in any
of the works to be examined here.
Due largely to the nature of the study,
B.
L.
Anderson’s book stands out in its
use of concepts and theory. It consists
of
an introduction by the editor
of
some
twenty pages on the historical develop-
ment of the theory
of
capital and the
attempts, during
the
period
of
the Indus-
trial Revolution, to make some quantita-
tive assessment of
the
capital stock.
Subsequently, the
book
is divided into two
sections of roughly equal proportions, the
first dealing with the advances made in
capital theory by contemporaries during
the period from the 1780s to the 1840s.
There are four contributions in this
section, comprising extracts from the
work
of
Adam Smith, William Ellis, John
Rae and John Stuart Mill. The second
part
of
the book consists of contemporary
efforts to describe and quantify the ac-
cumulation
of
capital, the time-span
stretching from
A
General Description
of
All Trades
in 1747 to Giffen’s study in
the 1878
Journal
of
the Statistical Society.
It is clear that the place of capital in
economic development has remained
through time a controversial and conten-
tious question. The basic issues are still
with us today particularly, as the editor
points out, in the context of the hitherto
under-developed countries. To the extent
that this volume clarifies certain of these
207
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