Anyone interested in a statistical approach to the history of the industrial revolution should read The Age of Revolution: Europe 1789–1848 by Eric Hobsbawm. It

Anyone interested in a statistical approach to the history of the industrial revolution should read The Age of Revolution: Europe 1789–1848 by Eric Hobsbawm. It's the first in an excellently written series on the history of the 18th century, written for the interested layperson.