Poverty, progress, and population / E.A. Wrigley.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wrigley, E. A. (Edward Anthony), 1931- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Industrial revolution--England.

Industrial revolution.

Cities and towns--England--Growth--History.

Cities and towns.

England--Economic conditions.

England.

England--Population--History.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiv, 463 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

First edition.

Other Title:

Poverty, Progress, & Population

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

By the early nineteenth century England was very different economically from its continental neighbours. It was wealthier, growing more rapidly, more heavily urbanised, and far less dependent upon agriculture. A generation ago it was normal to attribute these differences to the 'industrial revolution' and to suppose that this was mainly the product of recent change, but no longer. Current estimates suggest only slow growth during the period from 1760-1840. This implies that the economy was much larger and more advanced by 1760 than had previously been supposed and suggests that growth in the preceding century or two must have been decisive in bringing about the 'divergence' of England. Sir E. A. Wrigley, the leading historian of industrial Britain, here examines the issues which arise in this connection from three viewpoints: economic growth; the transformation of the urban-rural balance; and demographic change in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Contents:

Introduction

Part I. The wellsprings of growth :

1. The quest for the industrial revolution

2. The divergence of England : the growth of the English economy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

3. Two kinds of capitalism, two kinds of growth

4. Men on the land and men in the countryside : employment in agriculture in early nineteenth-century England

5. The occupational structure of England in early mid-nineteenth century England

6. Corn and crisis : Malthus on the high price of provisions

7. Why poverty was inevitable in traditional societies

8. Malthus on the prospects for the labouring poor

Part II. Town and country :

9. City and country in the past : a sharp divide or a continuum?

10. 'The great commerce of every civilised society' : urban growth in early modern Europe

11. Country and town : the primary, secondary and tertiary peopling of England in the early modern period

Part III. The numbers game :

12. Explaining the rise in marital fertility in England in the 'long' eighteenth century

13. No death without birth : the implications of English mortality in the early modern period

14. The effect of migration on the estimation of marriage age in family reconstitution studies

15. Demographic retrospective

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-107-14598-8

1-280-43765-0

0-511-16537-4

0-511-16596-X

0-511-16401-7

0-511-31285-7

0-511-61636-8

0-511-16481-5

OCLC:

560115596