ABSTRACT
The variety of developments that combined to create the first industrial revolution had somehow to be replicated, though not necessarily in identical fashion. Identifying the factors that caused the industrial revolution is vital not simply as a historical exercise but as the basis for understanding the complexity of the challenges awaiting societies that tried to establish an industrial revolution even after Britain showed the way. From the late fifteenth century onward, western European countries, ultimately headed by France, the Netherlands, and Britain, had won increasing control over international commerce. It is true that many Europeans had become familiar with production for the market, and that consumer interest in buying goods was unquestionably rising by the early eighteenth century. Growing global trade helped build up domestic capital and provided further evidence of wider markets for manufactured goods.
