Forging Modernity

An entertaining, splendid and stunningly original history of one of the most important events of human history, Forging Modernity explores the origins of the Industrial Revolution when human living standards were pulled up from grinding Malthusian poverty and onto the path to modern levels of prosperity. Why did the industrial revolution occur first in Britain, and what was its main cause? Hutchinson’s answer is that it occurred thanks to Britain’s strong property rights and the relative lack of state interference in the economy. Its intellectual roots are to be found in the royalism of the post-Restoration period, which was to find its apogee in the high Toryism of the eighteenth century. And had it not been for the Whigs’ grubby meddling early in that century, the Industrial Revolution might have occurred half a century before it did. At long last, a Tory and not a Whig interpretation of history!

This timely book reminds us what a great achievement the Industrial revolution in Britain was in the period 1660-1830, taking living standards far higher than on the continent for the many and witnessing a flowering of new products and technologies. Furthermore, it gave ideas to the world to raise their wages and wealth as they caught up in the nineteenth century. Hutchinson explains why this happened first in Britain, and how Tory politics helped by allowing local and entrepreneurial diversity and experimentation without heavy handed taxation and regulation. It is refreshing to be told that there is a lot good about economic growth, freeing people from poverty and extending opportunities for many to earn and save more and enjoy a better lifestyle.