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- Jun 2024
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www.lrb.co.uk www.lrb.co.uk
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In 1880 Britain could with some justification be called the ‘workshop of the world’: it produced more than 20 per cent of global industrial output and about 40 per cent of the world’s manufactured exports. In the nearly half-century since Samuel published his essay of that name, historians have done much to undermine the narrative of an ‘industrial revolution’ bookended by the invention of the spinning jenny in 1764 and the New Poor Law of 1834.
There's an interesting linkage going on here between the industrial revolution (and thus possibly Capitalism) with the creation and even litigation of "the poor" classes in Britain.
Did "the poor" exist in the same way they do today prior to the Industrial Revolution? What are the subtle differences? (Compare with Thompson, E. P. “Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism.” Past & Present, no. 38 (1967): 56–97.)
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