The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present

By David S. Landes

Book Overview

For over thirty years David S. Landes's The Unbound Prometheus has offered an unrivalled history of industrial revolution and economic development in Europe. Now, in this updated edition, the author reframes and reasserts his original arguments in the light of debates about globalisation and comparative economic growth. The book begins with a classic account of the characteristics, progress, and political, economic and social implications of the Industrial Revolution in Britain, France and Germany. Professor Landes here raises the much-debated question: why was Europe the first to industrialise? He then charts the economic history of the twentieth-century: the effect of the First World War in accelerating the dissolution of the old international economy; the economic crisis of 1929-32; Europe's recovery and unprecedented economic growth following the Second World War. He concludes that only by continuous industrial revolution can Europe and the world sustain itself in the years ahead. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0521094186
• ISBN13: 9780521094184
• Release Date: July 1969
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 576 Pages
• Weight: 1.33 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

"industrial revolution" with small letters, versus the capitalized "Industrial Revolution"

Landes traces the development of technology in Europe beginning with the Industrial Revolution in Britain. He frames the context of the book by differentiating between "industrial revolution" with small letters, versus the capitalized "Industrial Revolution (IR)." The former is defined as the general shift to mechanization and inanimate power. The IR is the interrelation of many changes: 1. the substitution of machines for...

Jack of all Trades, Master of None?

"It was the Industrial Revolution, writes historian David S. Landes, "that initiated a cumulative, self sustaining advance in technology whose repercussions would be felt in all aspects of economic life." He goes on to demonstrate that the Industrial Revolution had a birth, maturation, and decline. According to Landes, European nations reached these three stages of development at different intervals thus evoking varying degrees...

The way economics shapes political societies

The task professor Landes have tried to achieve, and what he produces along it, is more important than that whole consistency of his work. Professor Landes makes economic history, not only describing historical processes but analyzing them with key concepts taken from basic economic theory.Technological change creates opportunities for economic growth, but it could not explain, by itself, the whole historical process. Legal...

Good background reading, if slightly outdated

The Unbound Prometheus was published in 1969, so it is not exactly the latest call about economic history since 1750. But Landes makes a very good job at summarizing the basics about the most important economic issues of the past two hundred years: the role of market integration and technological change in Industrial Revolution (though, for the latter, see also Mokyr's Lever of Riches), the role of free trade in the mid-19th...