The Culture of Growth

This brilliant, erudite and ground breaking study asks the question why innovations in Europe in the late 18th century triggered the Industrial Revolution. The author focuses on the period 1500 to 1700, with detailed comparisons with the contemporary situation in China. What he calls coercion bias generally serves to maintain the status quo. He argues that culture - defined as the beliefs, values and preferences in society that are capable of changing behaviour - was the decisive factor in overcoming the inertia of intellectual and political conservatism. It is clear throughout the book that this movement involves a small elite - the Republic of Letters - increasingly interconnected with the emergence of postal services and grounded in a common knowledge of Latin. The environment was both politically fragmented and intellectually supportive of a competitive market of ideas in an ethos of tolerance and rights encouraging innovation and creativity. The focus is on useful knowledge that can be used to enhance human well-being and based on a new understanding of the relationship between humans and nature articulated by Francis Bacon and Newton as cultural entrepreneurs.

It was during this period that ideology of optimism and progress emerged, whereby the future becomes more desirable than the past. The accumulation of knowledge is more systematic, especially with the emergence of scientific academies, journals and the diffusion of knowledge through encyclopaedias; the process also became more rigorous and reliable. Early world voyages expanded western horizons as well as creating trade and bringing new products to Europe. Puritanism and the empirical philosophy of Locke also played a significant role in England but the critical factor is the overcoming of conservatism by innovators instead of the retrenchment found elsewhere. It is also important to remember how the Enlightenment brought together scientists, thinkers and entrepreneurs, for instance in Scotland. Readers come away from this book with a hugely enhanced understanding of the central cultural processes operating in Europe in the period leading up to the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution.