1st Edition
Essays in Industry and Technology in the Eighteenth Century England and France
By John Harris
Copyright 1992
240 Pages
by
Routledge
This collection of essays is devoted to the industrial history of England and France in the 18th century and concentrates in particular on transfers of technology between them. There are specific studies of technical transfer in the steel, glass and hardware industries, and on the place of the skills of the workmen in the diffusion of technology. Industrial espionage, too, early had its place, and... Read more
Contents: Introduction; Skills, coal and British industry in the eighteenth century; Saint Gobain and Ravenhead; Attempts to transfer English steel techniques to France in the eighteenth century; Michael Alcock and the transfer of Birmingham technology to France before the Revolution; Industrial espionage in the eighteenth century; Copper and shipping in the eighteenth century; The origins of the St Helens glass industry; Recent research on the Newcomen engine and historical studies; Index.
Biography
John Harris
'Essays in Industry and Technology in the Eighteenth Century is important particularly in its stress on the significance of craft skills and diffusion in the Industrial Revolution. By publishing this anthology, Harris has made a major and timely contribution to the history of technology.' Edwin T. Layton, Technology and Culture. '...this volume can be highly recommended for the insights it gives into the minutiae of international industrial skulduggery in the 18th century....' History '...Harris has provided a series of reliable and excellently argued case studies which together comprise a commentary on the Industrial Revolution of which any contemporary scholar would be proud' The Newcomen Bulletin
