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Don’t bother with this amateurish article and instead just read the work it’s responding to, which is Bret Devereaux’s fantastic essay on the topic https://acou

Don’t bother with this amateurish article and instead just read the work it’s responding to, which is Bret Devereaux’s fantastic essay on the topic https://acoup.blog/2022/08/26/collections-why-no-roman-industrial-revolution/ https://acoup.blog/2022/08/26/collections-why-no-roman-indus... . Actually by a professional historian and expert on the Roman Empire, and a lovely piece of writing.

throw0101a 3y ago
> which is Bret Devereaux’s fantastic essay Discussion: * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32607187 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32607187
bcrosby95 3y ago
This blog has been a treasure trove for building my RPG campaigns. I would pay lots of money for an "Idiot Worldbuilder's Guide to X" series of books based upon history. I'm probably in the minority though.
- libraryofbabel 3y ago
  My personal favorites on his blog are the series on how people produced Bread, Clothing, and Iron in the premodern world. The depth there is amazing, going into all the raw materials and different skills and processes required to support agriculture, textile production, and metallurgy. It really gives you a deep sense of the material conditions that shaped life in the past, and how alien pre-modern economic existence would be to 21st century folks (clothing and food were really really expensive, like one new set of clothes a year expensive, whereas housing costs were proportionally low). Highly recommended.
  - l33tbro 3y ago
    Is there a particular article or essay this is from? Would love to read about this.
    - libraryofbabel 3y ago
      Bread series: https://acoup.blog/2020/07/24/collections-bread-how-did-they-make-it-part-i-farmers/ https://acoup.blog/2020/07/24/collections-bread-how-did-they... Clothing series: https://acoup.blog/2021/03/05/collections-clothing-how-did-they-make-it-part-i-high-fiber/ https://acoup.blog/2021/03/05/collections-clothing-how-did-t... Iron series: https://acoup.blog/2020/09/18/collections-iron-how-did-they-make-it-part-i-mining/ https://acoup.blog/2020/09/18/collections-iron-how-did-they-...
    - jcranmer 3y ago
      The series on iron starts here: https://acoup.blog/2020/09/18/collections-iron-how-did-they-make-it-part-i-mining/ https://acoup.blog/2020/09/18/collections-iron-how-did-they-... The series on bread starts here: https://acoup.blog/2020/07/24/collections-bread-how-did-they-make-it-part-i-farmers/ https://acoup.blog/2020/07/24/collections-bread-how-did-they... The series on clothing starts here: https://acoup.blog/2021/03/05/collections-clothing-how-did-they-make-it-part-i-high-fiber/ https://acoup.blog/2021/03/05/collections-clothing-how-did-t...
roenxi 3y ago
Indeed. In particular the "I don’t believe that industrialization was so contingent on such very specific factors" part. Not exactly a strong motivator. We can, literally today, see how society responded to an opportunity to bring energy costs down an order of magnitude. Nuclear plants were built, people got spooked from Chernobyl and the industry was basically shut down. It takes no imagination at all to think people in the Roman days looked at coal and just said no. Western civilisation arguably did just that in the 70s. There is even a large contingent recently who say that using coal is a terrible mistake and we should be willing to move to more expensive energies (the exact positions got a bit murky as we don't have enough fossil fuels per-capita and solar is getting cheaper, but back through the 80s, 90s, 00s the positions were clear). Thinking about the dynamics of debate someone in Roman times had known what we know now and started a scare campaign over climate change they could easily have made an argument for just forgoing the industrial revolution. Let alone whatever imaginary threats a pre-industrial civilisation would have come up with in practice. I've seen the weather reports out of China, the downsides of industrialising on the environment aren't exactly subtle. The evidence of it taking specific conditions to trigger a step change is quite high. We know how important energy is because of the industrial revolution. The Romans didn't have that knowledge. Any resistance at all to the use of coal (like not having coal mines on hand) would have been a real obstacle.
dang 3y ago
Ah I missed that - thanks. Normally I'd swap the URLs but since there's a different essay by that author on the front page right now, I think we'll leave this thread alone; it just set off the flamewar detector anyhow. The other thread: How to Roman Republic 101 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36903149 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36903149 - July 2023 (30 comments)

throw0101a 3y ago

> which is Bret Devereaux’s fantastic essay Discussion: * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32607187 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32607187

bcrosby95 3y ago

This blog has been a treasure trove for building my RPG campaigns. I would pay lots of money for an "Idiot Worldbuilder's Guide to X" series of books based upon history. I'm probably in the minority though.

libraryofbabel 3y ago
My personal favorites on his blog are the series on how people produced Bread, Clothing, and Iron in the premodern world. The depth there is amazing, going into all the raw materials and different skills and processes required to support agriculture, textile production, and metallurgy. It really gives you a deep sense of the material conditions that shaped life in the past, and how alien pre-modern economic existence would be to 21st century folks (clothing and food were really really expensive, like one new set of clothes a year expensive, whereas housing costs were proportionally low). Highly recommended.
- l33tbro 3y ago
  Is there a particular article or essay this is from? Would love to read about this.
  - libraryofbabel 3y ago
    Bread series: https://acoup.blog/2020/07/24/collections-bread-how-did-they-make-it-part-i-farmers/ https://acoup.blog/2020/07/24/collections-bread-how-did-they... Clothing series: https://acoup.blog/2021/03/05/collections-clothing-how-did-they-make-it-part-i-high-fiber/ https://acoup.blog/2021/03/05/collections-clothing-how-did-t... Iron series: https://acoup.blog/2020/09/18/collections-iron-how-did-they-make-it-part-i-mining/ https://acoup.blog/2020/09/18/collections-iron-how-did-they-...
  - jcranmer 3y ago
    The series on iron starts here: https://acoup.blog/2020/09/18/collections-iron-how-did-they-make-it-part-i-mining/ https://acoup.blog/2020/09/18/collections-iron-how-did-they-... The series on bread starts here: https://acoup.blog/2020/07/24/collections-bread-how-did-they-make-it-part-i-farmers/ https://acoup.blog/2020/07/24/collections-bread-how-did-they... The series on clothing starts here: https://acoup.blog/2021/03/05/collections-clothing-how-did-they-make-it-part-i-high-fiber/ https://acoup.blog/2021/03/05/collections-clothing-how-did-t...

roenxi 3y ago

Indeed. In particular the "I don’t believe that industrialization was so contingent on such very specific factors" part. Not exactly a strong motivator. We can, literally today, see how society responded to an opportunity to bring energy costs down an order of magnitude. Nuclear plants were built, people got spooked from Chernobyl and the industry was basically shut down. It takes no imagination at all to think people in the Roman days looked at coal and just said no. Western civilisation arguably did just that in the 70s. There is even a large contingent recently who say that using coal is a terrible mistake and we should be willing to move to more expensive energies (the exact positions got a bit murky as we don't have enough fossil fuels per-capita and solar is getting cheaper, but back through the 80s, 90s, 00s the positions were clear). Thinking about the dynamics of debate someone in Roman times had known what we know now and started a scare campaign over climate change they could easily have made an argument for just forgoing the industrial revolution. Let alone whatever imaginary threats a pre-industrial civilisation would have come up with in practice. I've seen the weather reports out of China, the downsides of industrialising on the environment aren't exactly subtle. The evidence of it taking specific conditions to trigger a step change is quite high. We know how important energy is because of the industrial revolution. The Romans didn't have that knowledge. Any resistance at all to the use of coal (like not having coal mines on hand) would have been a real obstacle.

dang 3y ago

Ah I missed that - thanks. Normally I'd swap the URLs but since there's a different essay by that author on the front page right now, I think we'll leave this thread alone; it just set off the flamewar detector anyhow. The other thread: How to Roman Republic 101 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36903149 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36903149 - July 2023 (30 comments)