Strayer Unit 5 Flashcards
Unit 5 - Industrialization
Europe’s origins as warring states…
created a society open to change and development. Required revenue to survive, creating state alliances w/ merchant classes and a barrier between economic and technological stagnation that would weaken them in warring periods.
Merchants sometimes given privileges, monopolies, tax-collecting jobs for loaning or paying money to state. States offered prizes for innovation, state-founded scientific societies.
Also drained European resources due to constant conflict.
the two revolutions that perhaps contributed or were the causes of the Industrial Revolution
Scientific Revolution
Agricultural Revolution of Britain: new forms of farming and working land = capitalist agriculture and accumulation of wealth
“Industrial Enlightenment”
where the new understandings of the universe and commitment to finding truth fostered technological development
Britain’s advantages in European Miracle
Innovation, plentiful coal, growing consumer market, cheap capital from trade and agriculture to reinvest in economic opportunities, geography (island) served as shield from constant wars, high-wage workforce = incentive for technologies that reduce the need for human labor
Was Europe alone in this burst of innovation?
Perhaps not, as indicators such as life expectancy, consumption and nutrition patterns, wages, living standards, the presence of free markets, and prospering merchant classes show that India, Dar-Al-Islam, and China had also flourished both technologically and economically, but their flourishing slowed during the early modern era. By 1750, Europe was not a clear global economic dominating power.
