ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the divergence in economic performance between Europe and the rest of the world in the nineteenth century. It traces the spread of “industrial revolutions” across the globe. The chapter explores that the main characteristics of these revolutions are rapid technological innovation, the introduction of factories, and unprecedented rates of economic growth. It discusses how certain technologies, and the institution of the factory, built on what had gone before. It is quite possible that later episodes of industrialization in other countries would not have occurred without the British example – just as the idea of agriculture spread geographically after the original agricultural revolutions. Factories and new technology then combined to increase industrial productivity. Increased productivity encouraged increased per capita incomes. However, this took a while: Factories emerge from the 1750s, and technological innovation accelerates from the 1770s, but per capita incomes rise only from the 1820s.
