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I always wonder, with articles like this, what really drove these innovations. Like, is it oversimplifying the socioeconomic pressures that drove or impeded the

I always wonder, with articles like this, what really drove these innovations. Like, is it oversimplifying the socioeconomic pressures that drove or impeded these innovations? How did things like labor shortages or resource needs slow down and speed up the development of steam tech. How many parallel steam innovations stalled out or never took hold in other places in the world? I guess what I'm really wondering is, is this an example of a narrative fallacy where we summarize a chaotic, messy process with a highly uncertain outcome as being linear and inevitable?

Svip 2y ago
A good way to address this is to ask "why did the Roman Empire not have an industrial revolution?" Bret Devereaux already did a great job on this[0], but the short-ish answer goes like this: Britain had basically been laid barren from trees (other areas of Europe had seen similar instances), but they still needed to heat houses. With firewood scares, and coal basically lying on the ground, particularly in Yorkshire, coal was an easy alternative. And so Britain became dependent on coal for heating, but eventually the coal was not simply to be lifted off the ground, it now had to be dug up from mines. Mines weren't exactly a new thing, but these mines were huge comparatively, and the labour required was thus much larger than usual, and that informed the idea of using a steam engine to bring up the coal from the mine (after all, the coal was right there). [0] https://acoup.blog/2022/08/26/collections-why-no-roman-industrial-revolution/ https://acoup.blog/2022/08/26/collections-why-no-roman-indus...
- enticeing 2y ago
  Just to clarify, the initial use for steam engines at coal mines was to pump out water. (Same source as above)
  - lupusreal 2y ago
    An important point, because they then put that water into canals dug to the towns that needed the coal. This made coal even cheaper and let towns grow larger to house the workforces of new larger factories.

Svip 2y ago

A good way to address this is to ask "why did the Roman Empire not have an industrial revolution?" Bret Devereaux already did a great job on this[0], but the short-ish answer goes like this: Britain had basically been laid barren from trees (other areas of Europe had seen similar instances), but they still needed to heat houses. With firewood scares, and coal basically lying on the ground, particularly in Yorkshire, coal was an easy alternative. And so Britain became dependent on coal for heating, but eventually the coal was not simply to be lifted off the ground, it now had to be dug up from mines. Mines weren't exactly a new thing, but these mines were huge comparatively, and the labour required was thus much larger than usual, and that informed the idea of using a steam engine to bring up the coal from the mine (after all, the coal was right there). [0] https://acoup.blog/2022/08/26/collections-why-no-roman-industrial-revolution/ https://acoup.blog/2022/08/26/collections-why-no-roman-indus...

enticeing 2y ago
Just to clarify, the initial use for steam engines at coal mines was to pump out water. (Same source as above)
- lupusreal 2y ago
  An important point, because they then put that water into canals dug to the towns that needed the coal. This made coal even cheaper and let towns grow larger to house the workforces of new larger factories.