Knowledge,Enlightenment,and the Industrial Revolution: Reflections on The Gifts of Athena

Mokyr Joel , “The intellectual origins of modern economic growth”, Journal of economic history, lxv (2005), 285–351.

Mitch David , “The role of education and skill in the British Industrial Revolution”, in Mokyr Joel (ed.), The British Industrial Revolution: An economic perspective, 2nd edn (Boulder, CO, 1999), 241–79.

Harris John R. , “Skills, coal and British industry in the eighteenth century”, in Essays in industry and technology in the eighteenth century (Aldershot, 1992); idem, Industrial espionage and technology transfer (Aldershot, 2001).

For an attempt to deal with this question, see Mokyr Joel , “Useful knowledge as an evolving system: The view from Economic History”, in Blume Larry Durlauf Steven (eds), The economy as an evolving complex system, iii (Oxford, 2006), 307–37.

Hilaire-Pérez Liliane , L'invention technique au siècle des Lumières (Paris, 2000). Stewart captures the flavour of my argument in his statement that Enlightenment thinkers considered the distinctions between scholars and craftsmen downright “to the philosophical enterprise” though they were regarded as equally harmful to material progress in general. Count Rumford noted impatiently in 1799 that “there are no two classes of men in society that are more distinct, or that are more separated from each other by a more marked line, than philosophers and those who are engaged in arts and manufactures” and that this prevented “all connection and intercourse between them”. Thompson Rumford William Count , The compete works of Count Rumford (London, 1876), 743–5.

Elsewhere, indeed, I pointed to the competence of British skilled craftsmen as a crucial element of the British Industrial Revolution. See Mokyr Joel , “Technological change, 1700–1830”, in Floud Roderick McCloskey D. N. (eds), The economic history of Britain since 1700, 2nd edn (Cambridge, 1994), i, 12–43, and Mokyr Joel , “Long-term economic growth and the history of technology”, in Handbook of economic growth, ed. by Aghion Philippe Durlauf Steven (Amsterdam, 2005), 1127–9.

See Jacob Margaret C. , “Mechanical science on the factory floor: The early Industrial Revolution in Leeds”, in this issue of History of science.

Belfanti Carlo Marco , “Guilds, patents, and the circulation of technical knowledge”, Technology and culture, xlv (2004), 569–89.

These differences in competence were clearly understood by contemporaries. Thus Jean Baptiste Say in the early nineteenth century: “the enormous wealth of Britain is less owing to her own advances in scientific acquirements, high as she ranks in that department, as to the wonderful practical skills of her adventurers in the useful application of knowledge and the superiority of her workmen.” See Say Jean-Baptiste , A treatise on political economy, 4th edn (Boston, 1803), 32–33.

Jacob , op. cit. (ref. 7).

Cohen H. Floris , “Inside Newcomen's fire engine: The Scientific Revolution and the rise of the modern world”, History of technology, xxv (2004), 111–32, p. 123.

Hunter Michael , Establishing the new science: The experience of the early Royal Society (Woodbridge, Suffolk, and Wolfeboro, NH, 1989).

Burke Peter , A social history of knowledge (Cambridge, 2000), 44.

Desaguliers John T. , A course of experimental philosophy, 3rd edn (London, 1763), i, p. iii.

Gillispie Charles C. , Science and polity in France at the end of the Old Regime (Princeton, 1980), 438–44. It is indeed interesting that Berg cites John Harris's somewhat dismissive remark about the discovery of the properties of steel by Berthollet, Monge, and Vandermonde in 1786. Without the knowledge that carbon content determined the characteristics of steel, it would have been rather hard to make progress in this industry — Though it took many years from that paper to Henry Bessemer and Robert Mushet. The knowledge, however, had clearly diffused to Britain by the 1820s, and was cited in widely available sources (e.g. The repertory of arts, manufactures and agriculture (London, 1821), 369; Wilson Edward James , The artist's and mechanic's encyclopaedia, ii (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1830), 67). In France, the Committee for Public Safety instructed the three scientists to write a 34-page pamphlet depicting how to make steel and distributed fifteen thousand copies. See Horn Jeff , The path not taken: French industrialization in the Age of Revolution (Cambridge, MA, 2006), 147–8.

Stewart Larry , “A meaning for machines: Modernity, utility, and the eighteenth-century British public”, Journal of modern history, lxx (1998), 259–94, p. 264.

See Mokyr Joel , “The political economy of technological change: Resistance and innovation in economic history”, in Berg Maxine Bruland Kristin (eds), Technological revolutions in Europe (Cheltenham, 1998), 39–64.

Mokyr Joel , “The market for ideas and the origins of economic growth in eighteenth century Europe” [Heineken Lecture], in Tijdschrift voor sociale en economische geschiedenis, 2007, forthcoming.

An example is Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot, widely believed to be the true inventor of the steam car, whose fardier à vapeur of 1769 was a steam-propelled vehicle. The research was funded by the French military and was discontinued in 1772, but he was awarded an annual pension by Louis XV in recognition of his efforts.

The example cited by Stewart, the Society of Arts's promised prize for the best imitation of Chinaware from British raw materials, is another case in point.

Mokyr Joel , “Mercantilism, the Enlightenment, and the Industrial Revolution”, presented to the Conference in Honor of Eli F. Heckscher, Stockholm, May 2003. Forthcoming in Findlay Ronald Henriksson Rolf Lindgren Håkan Lundahl Mats (eds), Eli F. Heckscher (1879–1952): A celebratory symposium (Cambridge, MA, 2006), 269–303; and idem, “The great synergy: The European Enlightenment as a factor in modern economic growth”, in Dolfsma Wilfred Soete Luc (eds), Understanding the dynamics of a knowledge economy (Cheltenham, 2006), 7–41.

Baumol William , The free-market innovation machine: Analyzing the growth miracle of capitalism (Princeton, NJ, 2002). Shleifer Andrei Vishny Robert , The grabbing hand: Government pathologies and their cures (Cambridge, MA, 1998).

Epstein S. R. , “Craft guilds, apprenticeships, and technological change in preindustrial Europe”, Journal of economic history, lviii (1998), 684–713; idem, “Knowledge-sharing and technological transfer in pre-modern Europe, c. 1200 — C. 1800”, unpublished manuscript, presented to the EHA Annual Conference, San Jose, 2004.

Ogilvie Sheilagh , “Guilds, efficiency, and social capital: Evidence from German proto-industry”, Economic history review, lvii (2004), 286–333.

For a more detailed analysis, see Mokyr , op. cit. (ref. 18).

For a brief discussion of the Chinese KaoZheng movement in the late seventeenth century and how it failed to turn into anything that would affect economic performance, see Mokyr , “Synergy” (ref. 21).

Mokyr Joel , “Mobility, creativity, and technological development: David Hume, Immanuel Kant and the economic development of Europe”, in Abel G. (ed.), Kolloquiumsband of the XX. Deutschen Kongresses für Philosophie (Berlin, 2006), 1131–61.

Gay Peter , The Enlightenment: An interpretation. The rise of modern paganism (New York, 1966), 24.

A good example is the location of Voltaire's Ferney estate, just over the Swiss border. It had to be located in France to avoid Geneva's rule against having a private theatre, but close enough so that in extremis he could make a quick escape, which, given that this layout was common knowledge, was in fact never necessary.

An elaborate argument on the growth of useful knowledge thanks to the changing dynamics of these networks can be found in Collins Randall , The sociology of philosophies: A global theory of intellectual change (Cambridge, MA, 1998), chap. 10.