Ha, I wish. Maybe a children’s illustrated encyclopedia.
Market expansion is definitely an interesting area for research here. Foreign trade shares in the economy were small, but in certain key sectors (i.e. textiles) it was pretty significant. But again, it’s important to unravel whether these markets can be considered A) additional demand or B) won by higher-quality / lower-cost production. That’s the story of the “New Draperies” in the 17th c. and cottons from the 18th.
Anton and I have chatted about this a lot, and I agree with most of this. “Labor push” is a thing, but more for 20th-century developing economies than for first-wave industrializers. See Alvarez-Cuadrado, Francisco, and Markus Poschke. 2011. “Structural Change Out of Agriculture: Labor Push versus Labor Pull.” American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 3 (3): 127-58.
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head—the fifteenth century is critical in the formation of (early) modernity. David Wootton argues that the Age of Discovery invented the idea of discovery/novelty/invention, and I would love to investigate this idea further. Even beyond the technical challenges of navigation, the notion—which anyone can understand—that there are new things in the world outside the current bounds of human knowledge is critical for getting people to seek out and trust new technologies.
Ha, I wish. Maybe a children’s illustrated encyclopedia.
Market expansion is definitely an interesting area for research here. Foreign trade shares in the economy were small, but in certain key sectors (i.e. textiles) it was pretty significant. But again, it’s important to unravel whether these markets can be considered A) additional demand or B) won by higher-quality / lower-cost production. That’s the story of the “New Draperies” in the 17th c. and cottons from the 18th.
Anton and I have chatted about this a lot, and I agree with most of this. “Labor push” is a thing, but more for 20th-century developing economies than for first-wave industrializers. See Alvarez-Cuadrado, Francisco, and Markus Poschke. 2011. “Structural Change Out of Agriculture: Labor Push versus Labor Pull.” American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 3 (3): 127-58.
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head—the fifteenth century is critical in the formation of (early) modernity. David Wootton argues that the Age of Discovery invented the idea of discovery/novelty/invention, and I would love to investigate this idea further. Even beyond the technical challenges of navigation, the notion—which anyone can understand—that there are new things in the world outside the current bounds of human knowledge is critical for getting people to seek out and trust new technologies.