Books by Robert Allen, Robert C. Allen
Found 1 book
The big question is what drove this transformation. Historians, economists, and anthropologists have proposed a long list of explanations for why human life suddenly changed starting in 18th-century England, from geographic effects to forms of government to intellectual property rules to fluctuations in average wages .
There is another new book on the Industrial Revolution, namely Robert C. Allen's The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective . It's all about how the British had high wages and cheap energy, a kind of Heckscher-Ohlin approach to why we're not eating mud cakes. It's good enough on its own terms, but it's a) question-begging in parts, and b) startling what a small role ideas play in the basic story. Indirectly, this book is proof that Mokyr's contribution is an important one.
Check out the accompanying sketch, from a short essay by Robert C. Allen , drawn from his new book The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective . The bottom line seems to be this: