Drawing on classical development theory and recent theoretical advances on the connection between expanding markets and technological developments, this book shows the critical role of expanding Atlantic commerce in the successful completion of England’s industrialization process over the period 1650–1850. The contribution of Africans, the central focus of the book, is measured in terms of the role of diasporic Africans in large-scale commodity production in the Americas - of which expanding Atlantic commerce was a function - at a time when demographic and other socioeconomic conditions in the Atlantic basin encouraged small-scale production by independent populations, largely for subsistence. This is the first detailed study of the role of overseas trade in the Industrial Revolution. It revises inward-looking explanations that have dominated the field in recent decades, and shifts the assessment of African contribution away from the debate on profits.
• Employs development theory to demonstrate the role of international trade in England’s industrialization • Effectively uses comparative regional analysis of the development process in England’s major counties from Domesday to the mid-nineteenth century • Offers comparison of England’s industrialization process with those of Holland and the Yangzi Delta in China, and recent ones in Asia and South America
Contents
1. Introduction; 2. The English economy in the Longue Duree; 3. A historiography of the first Industrial Revolution; 4. Slave-based commodity production and the growth of Atlantic commerce; 5. Britain and the supply of African slave labor to the Americas; 6. The Atlantic slave economy and English shipping; 7. The Atlantic slave economy and the development of financial institutions; 8. African-produced raw materials and industrial production in England; 9. Atlantic markets and the development of the major manufacturing sectors in England's industrialization; 10. Conclusion.
Prize Winner
Herskovitz Prize of the African Studies Association 2003 - Winner
Reviews
'For economic historians of Africa, the book includes a succinct and incisive analysis of the obstacles, internal and external, to expanding export-commodity production on the African side of the Atlantic.' Journal of African History
'Africans and the Industrial Revolution in England is the most important contribution to the economic history of the Atlantic World in a generation. … Africans and the Industrial Revolution is a monument to Inikori's research. … Inikori's masterpiece gives us new reasons to explore the Caribbean's role in the making of the modern world.' New West Indian Guide
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