Beginning in the late eighteenth century economic life in Western Europe was transformed. Revolutionary methods of manufacturing were developed and diffused. Inventors dreamed up new machines that increased by several hundred-fold the productivity of the human hand. New industries took root and expanded in Britain, Belgium, France and Germany. By the mid-nineteenth century, the scale of production in Europe was staggering. The decline in prices for cotton yarn and cloth, iron and other manufactures had no precedent in human history and the export of these goods led to deindustrialization in India, China and elsewhere. By 1850, Western Europe was the undisputed center of a new global manufacturing order.