INGS1001 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Rowman & Littlefield, Industrial Revolution, Eurocentrism
23 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Anastassia Simonian
27 April 2017
The Industrial Revolution and its Consequences, 1750 – 1850
Marks, The Origins of the Modern World, Ch. 4
Word Count: 220
3. What are the usual explanations for why the Industrial Revolution occurred in
Europe? What evidence from China does the author cite to suggest that these
arguments are not persuasive?
The usual explanations for why the Industrial revolution began in 18th century
England focus on population dynamics and the growth of free markets. As such, a
"counterexample" often pointed to is a deemed despotic China whereby nothing was
done in this "preindustrial demographic regime" to keep birthrates down and hence
hindered markets. However, whilst England may be the first to revolutionize cotton
manufacture, these arguments are still not entirely persuasive in that they are illogical
and rely on an inherent English inventiveness that perpetuates a Eurocentric narrative
- "the rise of the West." Reasons for this illogicality are well illustrated by Robert B.
Marks.1 Ultimately, he emphasizes that because both premises (population dynamics
and the growth of free markets) are true in China too than their value as
"explanations" for why the industrial revolution occurred in Europe is questionable as
they do not sufficiently or necessarily lead to the conclusion. Chinese markets both
existed and even functioned better than those in Europe, as is true that there were
numerous ways that Chinese families limited their size and kept the overall Chinese
population above subsistence levels, albeit different techniques to Europe.
1 Marks. R. The Origins of the Modern World: A Global and Environmental
Narrative from the Fifteenth to the Twenty-First Century (World Social Change)
Chapter 4. Lanham, United States: Rowman & Littlefield. 2015. Print
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