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The Industrial Revolutions
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The Industrial Revolutions

Author: Dave Broker

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The story of how a primate species created a world full of skyscrapers, airplanes, nuclear weapons, and vaccines. From the mass production of cotton weaving in the first industrial revolution of the 18th Century, to the digital revolution of today, this podcast will explore the ways our world has rapidly changed.
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Introduction

Introduction

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When the founding fathers wrote the U.S. Constitution in the 1780s, life on planet earth had changed very slowly over the previous 10,000 years. Life in 1780 wasn’t all that different from life in 1500. Life in 1500 wasn’t all that different from life in 1250. Life in 1250 wasn’t all that different from life in 1000. And so on, and so on.But then the human experience changed completely: Where we live, how long we live, when we work, when we sleep, how we go about our lives. It’s time we told that story. This is the Industrial Revolutions.
Chapter 1: Genesis

Chapter 1: Genesis

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In this episode, we cover the origins of human society, which remained relatively unchanged until the Industrial Revolutions:How we evolved into “smart man”How we stopped foraging and started farmingHow we started building citiesHow we developed trade and moneyHow we developed government and religionHow we invented writingHow we developed a system of social inequalityHow our ideas spread out across the Eurasian landmass
Europe was (rightly or wrongly) considered the backwater of the civilized world for most of history. So how is it the Europeans built global empires and changed the world with industrialization?In this 25-minute episode, I’m going to run through the developments of the Middle Ages and the circumstances of life in Europe that gradually led to a new world order. Topics include:The impact of Ancient RomeThe Dark AgesThe CrusadesThe Black DeathTrade with the Islamic WorldThe early days of modern financeThe rebirth of learning and practical inventions
Beginning in the 1300s, a rivalry between two kingdoms on the Iberian Peninsula led to a whole lot of exploring, trading, and conquering. Before long, other European powers were getting in on the action. Not only did it transfer the gravity of the world’s political and economic power toward Europe, it set Europe on a path toward industrialization.In this episode, we’ll explore:The early days of European naval explorationPortuguese trade in the EastSpanish conquest in the WestThe mountain of silver at PotosiHow plantation commodities changed the world economyThe foundations of the transatlantic slave tradeThe development of joint stock corporations, modern banking, and insurance
Are we living in Thomas More’s Utopia? In this chapter, we’ll explore his book and his life to chart the path toward the industrialized world we inhabit today, including: The rise of cottage industry; Mechanical innovations; Increasing specialization; The war industry’s impact on mass production; The impact of the Protestant Reformation.
We’ll never know the names of the first farmers of the Neolithic Revolution, but we do know the names of the inventors who kick-started the Industrial Revolutions. Their simple innovations gave us a new world of nearly constant, explosive economic growth and a total restructuring of society everywhere and forever. This is how it happened.In this episode, we’ll cover: The growth of the global cotton trade in the 17th and 18th centuries; The flying shuttle; The spinning jenny; The water-frame; The spinning mule; The first cotton mills of northern England; The impact of the first industrial revolution in the new United States.
During the 18th Century, the British came up with many innovations that allowed them to get more out of the land. Not only did the increased production of food, iron, and coal make the first industrial revolution possible, but many innovations had indirect applications for new technologies.In this episode, we’ll cover: Jethro Tull’s seed drill; Turnip Townshend’s crop rotations; The resistance of agricultural laborers; Abraham Darby’s coke smelting process; Henry Cort’s puddling process; The legacy of John “Iron Mad” Wilkinson; The use of iron in cotton mills; Britain’s falling timber resources; New mine ventilation techniques; Sir Humphrey Davy’s safety lamp; and the evolution of rail tracks.Follow along on social media:https://facebook.com/indrevpodhttps://twitter.com/indrevpodhttps://instagram.com/indrevpod
The steam engine was the product of centuries of experimentation, economic necessities, strong business acumen, and colorful personalities. This is how it happened.
Nearly half the world’s population today lives in an urban area. Before the first Industrial Revolution, only about 3% did. Industrialization created urbanization. Not only did it create incentives for people to pack themselves into dense cities, it also created the means to overcome the challenges of density.What’s most amazing about this process is that many new metropolises were seemingly created from thin air. Some old cities did become big cities and some old big cities did become megacities, yes. But more amazingly, some villages that barely existed 500 years ago are now some of the world’s major population centers. In this episode, we’ll discuss the impact of the first Industrial Revolution on the British cities of Birmingham, Manchester, and London, and the ways the British government had to adapt.
At the dawn of the First Industrial Revolution, a new academic field emerged: Economics. (Well, something called “Political Economy” anyway.)  But centuries of economic thought had to be supplanted first.In this Chapter, we review some of the ideas that permeated Europe leading up to the Industrial Revolutions. We’ll discuss the works of Plato and Aristotle, the Scholastics, the Mercantilists, Quesnay and the Physiocrats, Galiani, Beccaria, Verri, and of course, Thomas Robert Malthus.
This week we discuss the life and times of the Father of Economics, including his native Scotland, his early years and education, his intellectual influences, his career, and his magnum opus: The Wealth of Nations.
From the 1760s to the 1830s, Great Britain went crazy for canals. America did too. These waterways helped speed up trade and fuel industrialization in the age before trains and highways. In the process, they created all kinds of new jobs and opportunities.Characters covered in this chapter include: Thomas Steers, the engineer who modernized river navigation in Lancashire; The Duke of Bridgewater, who built Britain’s first modern canal; James Brindley, who engineered the Bridgewater Canal and the Trent & Mersey Canal; Thomas Telford, the architect who built a huge iron aqueduct in Wales and “Neptune’s Staircase” in Scotland; William Weston, a British civil engineer who helped build the first canals in America; and Benjamin Henry Latrobe, a British architect who emigrated to the U.S. and helped build the new capital.
Creating the world’s first vessels of powered transportation was no joke. Several competitive inventors put everything on the line to be the first to build profitable steamboats. For most of them, the pursuit ended in failure. It was the most unlikely one – an American painter – who got the job done, and in the process, changed the course of world history.In this episode we’ll cover Denis Papin’s destroyed steamboat, the Marque de Jouffroy d'Abbans and his Pyroscaphe, William Symington and his Charlotte Dundas, the patent war between John Fitch and James Rumsey, and the life and times of Robert Fulton.
To support the Independent Labrador Retriever Rescue of Southern California (or to adopt a dog if you live there): http://www.indilabrescue.org -To get your favorite team’s apparel AND support the podcast, use this link: https://industrialrevolutionspod.com/fanatics - The principles of mass production at large worksites – through a combination of technological innovations and improved methods of organizing labor – was applied to a variety of industries in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries.In this episode, we’ll cover: Matthew Boulton and the Soho Manufactory; Arthur Guinness and the St. James’s Gate Brewery; Josiah Wedgwood and the Etruria Works; and the Portsmouth Block Mills – built by Marc Isambard Brunel, Henry Maudslay, and Samuel Bentham.
To support the National Alliance on Mental Illness: NAMI.orgWhen Joseph Bramah hired Henry Maudslay to help him make locks, little did he know his assistant would go on to change the world. Maudslay hired and trained a new generation of engineers who gave us everything from standardized tools to the powerful industrial machines of the future.
The Industrial Revolutions were made possible thanks to the Scientific Revolution, which began centuries earlier as militaries needed to invest in new ways to gain an edge in battle. With it came the Scientific Method and advancements in chemistry. Starting in the mid-18th Century, a few individuals took those chemistry lessons out of the laboratory and applied them to industry. These are their stories.In this episode, we’ll cover: John Roebuck and his works mass-producing sulfuric acid; Nicolas Leblanc and his method for manufacturing soda ash; Charles Tennant and his bleach powder empire; and more!
As the first Industrial Revolution was beginning to turn the world upside down, the Age of Enlightenment produced scientists whose breakthroughs helped shape that upside-down world. Today we discuss three of them: Antoine Lavoisier; Dr. Edward Jenner; and Sir Humphrey Davy.
After the suppression of the Puritans, religiosity died down in Great Britain and British America. Then, in the mid-18th Century, a revival of nonconformist churches swept over the English world. And it had a profound impact on the coming Industrial Revolution.In this week’s episode, we’ll talk about the two main Protestant forces behind this first Great Awakening – the Baptists and the Methodists – and how they shaped the new, industrial working class.
In the late 18th Century, increasing religious freedom led to violent rioting in London and Birmingham. The Quakers, meanwhile, kicked a gun manufacturer out of their denomination. And without knowing it, Enlightenment thinkers started to develop a brand-new religion – a religion that most of the world believes in today.
In this episode, we explore the underlying intellectual reasons for the American Revolution, and how that Revolution reshaped those ideas into a philosophy that would take over the world as industrialization spread.
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Comments (3)

Emily Cowan

This got too socialist for my taste.

Mar 27th
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mike agostinho

phenomenal episode!!!

Apr 21st
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Ford Prefect

what a crossover! two of my favourite up and coming, detailed and well researched history podcasts teaming up!

Sep 26th
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