Industrialization as an Historical Process Industrialization

This essay offers an historical overview of European industrialization from the perspective of long-run economic growth. Its chronological focus is the period from 1750 to 1914. Starting with Britain's eighteenth-century pioneering role, it then traces the diffusion of industrialization in northwestern Europe during the nineteenth century and relates it to international trade and especially market-friendly institutional changes associated with eighteenth-century proto-industrialization, the delayed spread of industrialization to eastern Europe to the latter's absence. The brief summary of twentieth-century experience also emphasizes international relationships and shows how these determined the contrast between the interwar and post-1945 periods.