I know we've had many threads over the years about the possibility of an Roman Industrial Revolution but Realistically, what is the earliest date that there could be an industrial revolution? Could it only happen in the late 18th and early 19th centuries or could it happen earlier? Perhaps during the renaissance? Or from the Byzantine Empire? Or, branching out of the European/Christian world, could the sciences of the Islamic Golden Age create an industrial revolution? Or hell even a Chinese dynasty?
Earliest Possible Industrial Revolution
- Thread starter Emperor Constantine
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I would say perhaps the Indus Valley Civilization, given that they had the assembly line, extensive commerce, the most advanced technology and by far the most advanced society of their day, but we do not know anything of them beyond their city ruins and artifacts other than a few scattered words transcribed in Sumerian Texts. However, this also makes such a possibility quite dubious, especially given the fact that they were still in the Bronze Age.
A very real possibility is Song China: In fact, it had most things we think of as being from Industrial Britain: The Bessemer Process for cheap steel, the corresponding puddling process for cheap wrought iron and a highly mechanized, water powered metal industry; water power was also used in mechanical clocks (like the famous one by Su Song), pound locks, irrigation, and wind power was also known; mass production of banknotes and metal tools in state-operated factories was routine; coal-based coke was used in smelting long before the West even knew of the it; movable type printing and paper were ubiquitous, even more so the cheaper block printing; literacy was far higher than any other major power elsewhere in the world; gunpowder, rockets and other firearms were invented; evolutionary theory and geology made great strides that would not be bested until Darwin's time; and even natural gas was used and pipelines of bamboo were known. IMO, it seems it was the Mongols that destroyed what really should have been the beginnings of a Chinese world.
A very real possibility is Song China: In fact, it had most things we think of as being from Industrial Britain: The Bessemer Process for cheap steel, the corresponding puddling process for cheap wrought iron and a highly mechanized, water powered metal industry; water power was also used in mechanical clocks (like the famous one by Su Song), pound locks, irrigation, and wind power was also known; mass production of banknotes and metal tools in state-operated factories was routine; coal-based coke was used in smelting long before the West even knew of the it; movable type printing and paper were ubiquitous, even more so the cheaper block printing; literacy was far higher than any other major power elsewhere in the world; gunpowder, rockets and other firearms were invented; evolutionary theory and geology made great strides that would not be bested until Darwin's time; and even natural gas was used and pipelines of bamboo were known. IMO, it seems it was the Mongols that destroyed what really should have been the beginnings of a Chinese world.
food v iron
the basic issue was the first society to industrialise agriculture would be the first to then produce regular surplus would have the ability to create the factory
society.
big issue suitable for a PHd good luck with the thread
the basic issue was the first society to industrialise agriculture would be the first to then produce regular surplus would have the ability to create the factory
society.
big issue suitable for a PHd good luck with the thread
The early hellenistic age,in III century BC.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucio_Russo
http://www.amazon.com/The-Forgotten-Revolution-Science-Reborn/dp/3540203966
I know the Indus Valley Civilization had really impressive city planning and public sanitation, but I'd never heard of them having assembly-line construction - interesting to know, where did you see that?
I'd agree that Song China is the most likely/smallest divergence possibility, though it'd probably look pretty different from OTLs Industrial Revolution because of a very different social/political situation. Other possibilities I could imagine without too much trouble would be something from Venice's galley assembly-line being translated into more large-scale mechanical production, a rather complicated POD for the Roman Empire likely involving some sort of "latifundia enclosure movement", or an organic development of guild/secret society/etc. based-industrialization along the present-day Nigerian coast. North India post-Indus Valley Civilization is a possibility too, but I don't know enough about it to say anything in detail.
Of course, if you're willing to use a soon enough PoD, the earliest possible Industrial Revolution was completed in 450 million years BC by sentient giant ants
See-
'The Most Powerful Idea in the World'
http://www.mostpowerfulidea.com
This has some very sensible suggestions about the timing of events which extends to a lit more than just the one discussed.
'The Most Powerful Idea in the World'
http://www.mostpowerfulidea.com
This has some very sensible suggestions about the timing of events which extends to a lit more than just the one discussed.
Well, there was a steam engine invented in ancient egypt, but it was useless as anything but a toy. Perhaps arab scholars resurrect it in the middle ages? That might make the crusades interesting
I would suggest in the Eastern Roman Empire some time in the century leading to the Crusades. Why? They had the basic knowledge to build from, having preserved much of the Classical worlds legacy, and had a very real need for an edge against the advancing Seljuq Turks.
Interesting idea; I have never thought of the West African Civilizations of being likely winners in the race to industrialization: What makes you say this?
See The Indus Civilization: A Contemporary Perspective by Gregory Possehl for the assembly line source.
I'll have to look into the Indus Valley Civilization. I knew they were advanced for their era but if they were as advanced as the claim.... well color me interested
.But Song China is probably the best for China. I've heard that before. God with how much they had, technologically at least, it really makes you wonder what they could have created or what they could have done if not for the Mongols. Really the same could be said for the Islamic golden age or even the Carolingian Empire without the Viking raids.
Well, there was a steam engine invented in ancient egypt, but it was useless as anything but a toy. Perhaps arab scholars resurrect it in the middle ages? That might make the crusades interesting
1. The steam engine that was created was very very crude when compared to more modern ones. 2. I'm not even sure if the info to re-create it was still in Egypt. Remember it was created in the Library of Alexandria, which was burned several times, the last by the Arabs. So again the info might not still be in Egypt.
There is an enormous gap between the knowledge of the classical world and the (considering the Byzantine lead over the West I'm using this term) High Middle Ages and the beginnings of an industrial revolution.
And how on earth does that have anything to do with industrialization? I've said it before but classical knowledge isn't magic, what are some dusty books full of moslty incorrect science and scientific methods going to do to help the Byzantines in a war against the Seljuks? I'm still confused as to how the belief that rediscovering classical knowledge led to the rennaisance came to be, because beyond the fact they happened at relatively similar times I can't see anything connecting them.
OK that's a little extreme. Do remember what Antiquity actually had compared to the middle ages. The aqueducts, paved roads, stone bridges, freestanding domes and structures (AKA no flying buttresses), a fairly literate population, running water, and probably many other things I'm forgetting. You can't sit there and say that there was no correlation between the rediscovery of many of these sciences and the Renaissance. I really think your underestimating just how capable our ancestors were and how much accumulated knowledge was lost in the dark ages and rediscovered in the Renaissance.
Yes there is a big difference between the knowledge of antiquity and the Industrial revolution. But I believe that we could have seen an earlier Industrial revolution, possibility from the Byzantine Empire, if the knowledge from antiquity wasn't lost. If it wasn't, then the next thousand years wouldn't have been spent backsliding and then clawing our way out of the hole that was the dark ages. Think about where we would be with an extra thousand years of learning and new knowledge.
The aqueducts and the literacy are the only of those two things which matter, and the litteracy didn't need to be rediscovered, literacy is a much more economic thing than something relating to the culture of the ancients (leaving aside how I'm not sure how true that is, the increase in literacy in the Renaissance had far more to do with the printing press than the ancients, although I guess they did give them something to read, even if most of it wasn't totally useful. That one's just something I need more proof on).
Basically my question is how much of this stuff was truly lost and not just infeasable at the time? Stone bridges and paved roads where both very expensive and required large scale organization that the previous era wasn't really capable of but they really aren't much harder than any other stone construction (okay bridges would be much harder but still, paved roads are a rather simple concept) which they where totally capable of. The big problem is just that it is expensive and requires a level of coordination the feudal system just can't provide.
Really europes problem was not a large loss of technology (really they actually advanced in some areas, like farming techniques and other technologies relating to agriculture, it was huge organized public infrastructure which declined) it was a decline in political stability and the urbanized roman economy. And really this had started long before the fall of the west, Europe in general was basically already in the dark ages by the time Rome fell. What you need to do is find a way of preventing the empires complete economic, military, and political collapse which essentially stopped European technological development stone dead. The reason the east was ahead of the west here is that they for the most part avoided this fate, with their urbanized monetized economy and their centralized and bureaucratization government imploding. That may lead to an early industrial revolution if some key developments in economics, production, and agriculture are made which lead to the industrial revolution in Britain but I still doubt its gonna happen that early unless its a major Byzantine wank.
Speaking as as proud a Byzantophile as you can be, I agree with this wholeheartedly.
Byzantium's one towering advantage over the West and its other rivals was a superbly organized (by early modern and earlier) standards state that could and did extract the wealth to maintain an effective standing army not based on feudal concerns and a system of diplomacy that could bribe and buy off anyone it didn't want to fight.
Technologically, Byzantium was at most slightly ahead of the West beyond anything related to this.
There was a cultural difference at play, Mongols or no.Oba said:
China didn't have primogeniture, so passing on estates (money) to a single person was impossible, & that was a big deal in British building of canals. Plus, in China, manual labor (or tool making) was looked down on, unlike Protestant Britain.
China also had a strong tendency toward "imperial permits", where industries, like salt mining, were granted without profit being an issue.
There's also issues of resources: Britain was fairly uniquely endowed with coal & iron in close proximity...
Willmatron
Banned
How important was gunpowder to the industrial revolution? Are we talking solely factories becoming common place or the rest of the infrastructure, like trains and eventually telegraphs?
I said it was useless as anything but a toy. Anyway, it doesn't have to be in egypt, I just want it to stay in the middle east to be found by arab scholars.
1. I don't think Mongols derailed it. If Song was so close to Industrialization, Ming Dynasty would have started it. So I don't think Song was close...
2. Mongols didn't derail scientific capability of Chinese, sure Mongols didn't developed it but not derailed it to become backward to several century.
Faeelin
Banned
Why would you think that?
They were two very different societies. The Ming were much less mechanized in many ways, for instance, and the iron production of north China never recovered to its Song heyday.