The Most Powerful Idea in the World Part 15

2 A single coc.o.o.n of B. mori Yong-woo Lee, Silk Reeling and Testing Manual, FAO Agricultural Services Bulletin no. 136, United Nations, Rome, 1999.

3 Silk from Chinese looms John Ferguson, "China and Rome" in Aufstieg und Niedergang der romischen Welt, vol. 9.2 (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1978).

4 The Turkish city of Bursa Robert Sabatino Lopez, "Silk Industry in the Byzantine Empire," Speculum XX, January 1945.

5 In 1665, five Dutch s.h.i.+ps Rudolf P. Matthee, The Politics of Trade in Safavid Iran: Silk for Silver, 16001730 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

6 It was Zonca's machine Usher, History of Mechanical Inventions.

7 "three sorts of engines never before made" "Thomas Lombe" in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

8 The mill, which employed more than two hundred men Ibid.

9 "he has not hitherto received the intended benefit" Smiles, Men of Invention and Industry.

10 The case of the manufacturers of woolen "Thomas Lombe" in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

11 Only one silk spinning factory Abbott Payson Usher, "The Textile Industry, 17501830," in Kranzberg and Pursell, eds., Technology in Western Civilization.

12 Even before the Company chose the village of Calcutta Landes, Wealth and Poverty of Nations.

13 Even then, it made for a very rough weave Woodruff D. Smith, Consumption and the Making of Respectability, 16001800 (New York: Routledge, 2002).

14 Between 1700 and 1750 T. Ivan Berend, An Economic History of Twentieth Century Europe: Economic Regimes from Laissez-Faire to Globalization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).

15 The market for cotton This is a highly abbreviated version of the argument made by the historian Eric Hobsbawm. E. J. Hobsbawm and Chris Wrigley, Industry and Empire from 1750 to the Present Day (New York: New Press, 1999).

16 Those overseas consumers were needed Angus Maddison, ed., The World Economy: Historical Statistics (Paris: Development Centre of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2003). Between 1700 and 1820, British per capita GDP grew by 37%, while the rest of Western Europe grew by less than 19% and the Netherlands declined by 14%.

17 They were the ones who were able to attract the attention Jan De Vries, "The Industrial Revolution and the Industrious Revolution," The Journal of Economic History 54, no. 2, June 1994.

18 By 2000 BCE Usher, History of Mechanical Inventions.

19 He never patented "John Kay" in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

20 Inventors in good odor at the Bourbon court B. Zorina Khan, "An Economic History of Patent Inst.i.tutions," EH.Net Encyclopedia, March 16, 2008, at http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/khan.patents.

21 The significance of this fact for industrialization Abbott Payson Usher, "The Textile Industry 17501830," in Kranzberg and Pursell, eds., Technology in Western Civilization. The presumed asymmetry between the productivity of weaving and spinning in eighteenth-century England has recently been questioned and is no longer regarded as una.s.sailable. However, it seems that the weight of the evidence still supports it.

22 "This is second only to the printing press" Usher, History of Mechanical Inventions, citing Theodore Beck.

23 The first wheels used to mechanize Ibid. Lynn White, citing ambiguous ill.u.s.trations in the windows of the cathedral at Chartres and an earlier regulation in the town of Speyer, gives the date of 1280.

24 "put [it] between a pair of rollers" Usher, "The Textile Industry, 17501830," in Kranzberg and Pursell, eds., Technology in Western Civilization.

25 In a flash, Hargreaves imagined "James Hargreaves" in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

26 "almost wholly with a pocket knife" Ibid.

27 "came to our house and burnt" Ibid.

28 "much application and many trials" Ibid.

29 "Weavers typically rested and played long" Landes, Wealth and Poverty of Nations.

30 "When in due course, SAINT MONDAY" Douglas A. Reid, "The Decline of Saint Monday 17661876," Past and Present no. 71, 1976.

31 "I was a barber" "Richard Arkwright" in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

32 As both men later recalled Ibid.

33 (Highs's daughter, Jane) Edward Baines, History of the Cotton Manufacture in Great Britain (London: H. Fisher, R. Fisher, 1835).

34 "... wee [sic ] shall not want" "Richard Arkwright" in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

35 He was, partly because of his success with waterpower Tann, "Richard Arkwright and Technology."

36 he could scarcely add to or subtract Ibid.

37 "no motion can ever act perfectly steady" Hills, Power from Steam.

38 "earliest steam-powered cotton spinning mill" Ibid.

39 somewhere north of 200,000 Tann, "Richard Arkwright and Technology."

40 "if any man has found out a thing" "Richard Arkwright" in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

41 "There sits the thief!" R. A. Burch.e.l.l, The End of Anglo-America: Historical Essays in the Study of Cultural Divergence (Manchester, UK, and New York: Manchester University Press and St. Martin's Press, 1991).

42 "the old Fox is at last caught" R. S. Fitton, The Arkwrights: Spinners of Fortune (Manchester, UK, and New York: Manchester University Press and St. Martin's Press, 1989).

43 "If yourself or Mr. Watt think as I do" Ibid.

44 "Though I do not love Arkwright" Smiles, Lives of Boulton and Watt.

45 "I have visited Mr. Arkwright" Birmingham Central Library and Adam Matthew Publications, The Industrial Revolution: A Doc.u.mentary History. Series Three: The Papers of James Watt and His Family Formerly Held at Doldowlod House.

46 "An engineer's life without patent" Robinson and Musson, James Watt and the Steam Revolution.

47 "not as the price of a secret" Birmingham Central Library and Adam Matthew Publications, The Industrial Revolution: A Doc.u.mentary History. Series Three: The Papers of James Watt and His Family Formerly Held at Doldowlod House.

48 No scientific discovery is ever named Malcolm Gladwell, "In the Air," The New Yorker, May 12, 2008.

49 "possessed unwearied zeal" Tann, "Richard Arkwright and Technology."

50 "A plain, almost gross" Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965).

51 "a son, brother, or orphan nephew" Tine Bruland, "Industrial Conflict as a Source of Innovation," in MacKenzie and Wajcman, The Social Shaping of Technology: how the refrigerator got its hum.

52 In the industry's Lancas.h.i.+re heartland William Lazonick, "The Self-Acting Mule and Social Relations in the Workplace," Ibid.

53 didn't catch on in Britain Mokyr, Lever of Riches.

54 "the last of the great inventors" Usher, "The Textile Industry, 17501830," in Kranzberg and Pursell, eds., Technology in Western Civilization.

55 "as soon as Arkwright's patent expired" Ibid.

56 In 1551 Parliament pa.s.sed legislation Mokyr, Lever of Riches.

57 Not only was Richard Hargreaves's original spinning jenny destroyed Jeff Horn, "Machine-breaking in England and France During the Age of Revolution," Labour/Travail 55, Spring 2005.

58 Normandy in particular Ibid.

59 "the machines used in cotton-spinning" Ibid.

60 "he had favored machines" Ibid.

61 "prejudice against machinery" Ibid.

62 "collective bargaining by riot" Kevin Binfield, Writings of the Luddites (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004).

63 Handloom weavers had been earning Sale, Rebels Against the Future.

64 "mee-mawing" Ibid.

65 more than half of all the land then in cultivation in England Ibid.

66 The lack of a patent Usher, History of Mechanical Inventions.

67 In the late 1770s, they pet.i.tioned Parliament Binfield, Writings of the Luddites.

68 The stockingers began in the town of Arnold Ibid.

69 The attacks continued throughout the spring Horn, "Machine-breaking in England and France During the Age of Revolution."

70 That November, a commander Ibid.

71 "2000 men, many of them armed" Binfield, Writings of the Luddites.

72 Manchester was further down the path Ibid.

73 Manchester alone had more than three thousand men Sale, Rebels Against the Future.

74 In January, the West Riding of Yorks.h.i.+re Binfield, Writings of the Luddites.

75 "Whereas by the charter" A. Aspinall and E. Anthony Smith, eds., English Historical Doc.u.ments XI, 17831832 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1959).

76 This made them not only self-interested Horn, "Machine-breaking in England and France During the Age of Revolution."

77 "I do not mean to say, that parties of Luddites" Aspinall and Smith, eds., English Historical Doc.u.ments XI, 17831832.

78 "You must raise your right hand" Ibid.

79 In 1813, there were 2,400 power looms Usher, "The Textile Industry 17501830," in Kranzberg and Pursell, eds., Technology in Western Civilization.

80 "a steam-loom weaver" Hills, Power from Steam, quoting Baines's 1835 History of the Cotton Manufacture in Great Britain.

81 During the century and a half Clark, Farewell to Alms.

CHAPTER ELEVEN: WEALTH OF NATIONS.

1 nothing about the forging of iron David Warsh, Knowledge and the Wealth of Nations: A Story of Economic Discovery (New York: W. W. Norton, 2006).

2 David Ricardo predicted Clark, Farewell to Alms.

3 The second component, growth in capital Warsh, Knowledge and the Wealth of Nations.

4 Solow first a.s.sumed Ibid.

5 "the ma.s.s of persons with intermediate skills" Hobsbawm and Wrigley, Industry and Empire: from 1750 to the Present Day.

6 preindustrial Britain exhibited a fair bit F. F. Mendels, "Social mobility and phases of industrialization," Journal of Interdisciplinary History 7, 1976.

7 "craftsman's sons became laborers" Clark, Farewell to Alms.

8 A recent World Bank a.n.a.lysis Kirk Hamilton, et al., Where Is the Wealth of Nations? Measuring Capital for the XXI Century (Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C.: World Bank, 2005).

9 India was home, in 1700 Maddison, ed., The World Economy: Historical Statistics.

10 Solow's fundamental growth equation Warsh, Knowledge and the Wealth of Nations.

11 Kremer's model made two a.s.sumptions Kremer, "Population Growth and Technological Change."

12 It's not as if Kremer was unaware Kremer, "Population Growth and Technological Change."

13 But China had, and has, huge coal deposits Kenneth Pomeranz, The Great Divergence: Europe, China, and the Making of the Modern World Economy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000).

14 And even though the barbarian invasions Ibid.

15 Needham's conclusion Joseph Needham, "The Pre-Natal History of the Steam Engine," Newcomen Society Transactions 35, no. 49, 196263.