ABSTRACT
Before the eighteenth century the most advanced economies in the world featured a combination of craft manufacturing and a large labor force committed to agriculture. Although agricultural improvements took shape in various places, they received enthusiastic support in Britain, where aristocratic landlords were particularly interested in new and more rewarding production for market sales. The initial explicit stages of the world's first industrial revolution involved a number of elements. The cotton industry commanded the central role in Britain's early industrialization. Until about 1840, Britain's industrial revolution consisted primarily of changes in the cotton industry, its massive results being expanded production and world outreach, but other developments were vital as well. The industrial revolution prompted major changes in business scale. Many operations started small; because initial textile machinery was not costly, many small-scale innovations could draw on a wide array of available business talent.
