Hobsbawm1

Technology before the Industrial Revolution: Hobsbawm intro-1

Why look at the more distant past?

when we have more distance we can see change and we can see patterns more clearly
an older friend said (on Facebook): "I do remember separate schools and bathrooms and water fountains and not being allowed into each others homes. I remember my father paying poll taxes so black friends could vote. I remember thinking this was the way life was. I remember realizing it didn't have to be that way and consciously changing my mind set."
to see very different patterns, realize that what we see today is the result of history and choices, it isn't just human nature

First the introduction to Hobsbawm:
What do historians do?
What is this book trying to do?

persuade the reader, not just state facts
Hobsbawm says this book does not wholly represent the consensus of experts--this is to some extent one side of an argument, not a textbook trying to present all sides fairly
explain why the British Industrial revolution (BIR) took place when and where it did
emphasize the importance of the British industrial revolution
focus on impact of the BIR on society
re-examine the question: did the BIR make people better off or worse off

critical thinking--make this question more specific

rich? poor?
first 50 years vs. later on

Hobsbawm ch. 1

what were conditions in England right before the industrial revolution began?
why did the industrial revolution happen in this place at this time?

What is an industrial revolution?

change in the economy from the majority of people employed in agriculture to the majority of people employed in industry
a period of rapid technological change as one new technology leads to another or requires another or make possible another

To understand the industrial revolution we need to look at:

Bigger patterns, mostly economic issues
How one step led to another (cause and effect)
What was the impact of industrialization on people’s lives

Why look at England? (note: Great Britain=England+Scotland+Wales+Northern Ireland)

it had the first industrial revolution, copied by other countries including the U.S.
since it was first it is the most interesting case study of how technological revolutions start
it also had to invent as it went along how to manage the social consequences of industrialization
Britain had the largest percentage of factory workers of any country so their influence on politics is particularly significant
Hobsbawm is British so he is also interested in how the most powerful country in the world became a minor power, and the consequences of that for life in England. We will be mostly skipping those chapters.

Background:

Prehistoric Technology--agriculture was the invention that allowed larger communities with division of labor, therefore more progress

Jane Goodall has shown that chimpanzees use tools in the same sense humans do, as do orangutans
paleontologists find that early species of humans, as much as 3 million years ago, used fire and produced simple tools. But in primitive societies there is little division of labor so the work process tends to stay very simple.
hunting and gathering seems to be an easy life--12 to 19 hours of work a week--so why develop agriculture?
less than 10 thousand years ago agriculture was invented in northern Iraq, and within a few thousand years independently in other parts of the world--China, India, central America.
slash and burn agriculture did not make much difference, because it cannot support large populations.
Irrigation is the key to the development of cities because it supports 14 times the population on the same area of land. It takes twice the labor as dry farming.
Mesopotamian writing:

Ancient World--progress was limited by attitudes towards technology in Europe and the Middle East

labor demands increased as a result of technological advance, but it also allowed specialization--the invention of government, writing, and in general of civilization. This second revolution happened in Egypt and Mesopotamia about 3000 BCE.

This meant the opportunities of a market, but at first opportunities to do new things were very limited by people's beliefs

belief that the physical world was controlled by Gods who behaved irrationally (example: Mesopotamia)
slavery--you don't need labor-saving devices if you have slaves to do the hard work
the attitude that practical life was beneath the dignity of educated men (example: Hellenistic Alexandria)
Plutarch said of Archimedes: "Although his inventions had won for him a name and fame for superhuman sagacity, he would not consent to leave behind him any treatise on this subject, but regarding the work of an engineer and every art that ministers to the needs of life as ignoble and vulgar, he devoted his earnest efforts only to those studies the subtlety and charm of which are not affected by the claims of necessity." (a source) Archimedes

The fall of Rome resulted in a near-complete collapse of civilization

barbarian tribes took over
literacy was nearly lost
slavery became impractical and the idea developed that it was immoral to hold Christians as slaves
civilization had to be rebuilt on a new foundation (Christianity)
the only functioning organization left was the church (Catholic)

The Middle Ages in Europe (700-1400 CE)--technological progress and economic changes

Europe became more technologically advanced than China only after about 1350
during the middle ages (also known as the medieval period) European technology began to progress while the Chinese increasingly believed that innovation was a bad thing.

the four season, from bnf.fr Agricultural changes increased the amount of food one farmer could produce:

The mouldboard plow (8th century, also known as the heavy or wheeled plow) turned the soil--needed on wet soils in northern Europe

required 6 to 8 oxen to pull so led to cooperative farming

PEM photo: Mouldboard Plow, National Museum of American History

Three field crop rotation (9th century)

winter wheat or rye
spring oats, beans, or barley
fallow
2/3 of the fields produced food each year instead of the old system where half the fields were left fallow

Horsepower replaces oxen (widespread by 12th century)--horse could work for more hours a day and moved 50% faster

oats (oxen can work on grass alone while horses need grain)
the horse-collar (8th-9th century)--allows a horse to pull 4 or 5 times more weight.

Horse-collar

iron horseshoes (common by 11th century) allowed horses to work on wet ground
the stirrup made possible the mounted knight, creating a demand for more and better horses

Feudalism gave farmers somewhat more freedom to adopt new technologies: castle with fields and ox drawn plow

--Manorial System : the serfs (not a slave, but bound to the land--cannot move away) lived in a village and farmed the land communally, giving a share of their labor and the crop to the knight
--the knight and his family lived in the castle and had responsibility to protect the serfs and to fight when called up by the king
--theoretically the king owned all the land and gave the lords the right to use it in return for military service, the lords then divided it up among knights on the same deal
--such government as there was was provided by the knights and lords
--the farmers had some opportunity to better themselves by improving farming practices

waterwheel at 17th century ironworks

Water Power began to be used in place of human muscle: water mill

invented in Roman times but used only rarely through the 5th century
Spread of the water wheel in the 8th and 9th centuries

In 1086 the Domesday Book lists 5624 mills in 3000 English communities--an average of one mill for every 50 households

first mills were floating mills or mills attached to bridges. They first had undershoot wheels (20-30% efficient), then overshoot (50-60% efficient, 13th century) with the water directed by a canal or a wooden millrace
the invention of the cam allows the conversion of rotary motion into reciprocating motion
new uses for water power:

around 1000: fulling wool cloth, beating hemp, water driven trip hammers to break up iron ore
around 1100 water powered bellows, edge runner wheels to crush olives for oil
around 1200 saw mills that used water power both to power a rotary saw and to feed in the log
around 1300 water powered grindstones, pumps to remove water from mines

damming a river for water power--1177 Toulouse had 3 dams with 43 mills. The largest dam was 1300 feet long
windmills (12th century) used in areas where land was flat or streams froze in the winter

23. Life and Miracles of Saint Louis

Christianity and attitudes towards technology in the Middle Ages

motivation to go out and spread Christianity
God no longer inhabits nature
Man's dominion over the earth--new attitude
monasteries developed and spread technology because they needed it to be self-supporting on marginal land and because they believed work was virtuous
monks work with their hands--the first intellectuals who got their hands dirty ( The Cistercians )
Christianity prohibited the owning of Christians as slaves so slavery became much less common
Cathedrals were a technological achievement with a religious purpose--competition to build taller both for civic pride and because people saw it as getting closer to God (a medieval mason, images of medieval art and architecture)
the invention of the clock in the late 13th century--at a monastery

The Early Modern Era from 1450 to 1750 saw further technological innovations and changes in thinking.

image source

The printing press allowed knowledge to spread more quickly and reliably:

medieval books cost $2000-10,000 in today's money
the first universities developed in the middle ages, and the demand for books was so high that some workshops had a kind of mass production with one person reading and a number writing
paper was already mass produced, the screw press and oil-based inks used for wooden block prints
Gutenberg's key innovation (in 1452) was moveable type (more history )
by 1483 the same amount of money would produce 3 hand copies of 1025 printed copies
the cost of a book dropped to a few hundred dollars in today's money
by 1500 8 million books published--equal to total previous world output

impact:

students didn't have to spend all their time memorizing the books
more books available meant it was easier to compare books and notice contradictions
more accurate and faster transmission of knowledge
people read the Bible for themselves, leading to the reformation

Luther takes his stand in 1517--argues that we are saved by God's grace not by good works and that everyone has the right to interpret the Bible for themselves
in 1531 Henry VIII breaks England away from the Catholic church

Martin Luther

Scientific Revolution ( a somewhat more detailed overview ):

Copernicus published De Revolutionibus Orbis Celestium in 1543. He was a priest motivated by the need for calendar reform, but his argument that the earth goes around the sun (instead of vice versa) started the downfall of Aristotelian science
Kepler published the theory that the planets move in elliptical orbits in 1609.
Galileo published his defense of the Copernican system in 1632 and his new physics in 1638. Galileo is most important because he put into place a new scientific method in which scientists argued from experiment and from his observations with the telescope, not from logic alone.
Newton published the law of universal gravitation in 1687. He was slowed down a bit because he had to invent calculus in order to show that his theory worked.

Exploration:

the problem of navigation was not solved during the age of exploration

magnetic compass introduced in 13th century, but knowing which way you are going doesn't help much if you don't know where you are
more careful map-making was the main improvement of the 14th and 15th centuries, particularly knowledge of the winds
minor improvements in methods for measuring latitude in 15th century
the problem of measuring longitude was not solved until the mid to late 1700s ( story)

in 1340 the Muslims cut off overland trade to Asia and Europeans start exploring outside the Mediterranean

slow exploration down the coast of Africa until Bartholomew Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1487
Columbus underestimated the circumference of the earth and reached America in 1492
in 1519 Magellan set out on a 3 year voyage around the world

the full rigged ship (about 1500--only one of Columbus's ships was the new design)

multiple masts and more than one sail on each mast
rudder permanently attached to a stern post instead of a steering oar
rounded shape

military technology was also critical, because of the fighting to control sea routes

primitive cannon about 1325 used carved stone balls and exploded a lot
iron cannonballs introduced 1350, corned gunpowder for more even explosion about 1420
cannon became safe enough to use on a ship about 1500
very quickly warships began carrying large numbers of cannon--England rose to power partly because they were more successful in making iron cannon (because they happened to have high-phosphorous ore)

Early gunpowder weapons

last updated 8/26/2019