The First Industrial Nation: The Economic History of Britain 1700 - 1914

by Peter Mathias

This celebrated and seminal text examines the industrial revolution, from its genesis in pre-industrial Britain, through its development and into maturity. A chapter-by-chapter analysis explores topics such as economic growth, agriculture, trade finance, labour and transport.
First published in 1969, The First Industrial Nation is widely recognised as a classic text for students of the industrial revolution.

Genres: History, Economics, Business, Nonfiction

520 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Peter Mathias, CBE FRHistS FBA MAE was a British economic historian and the former Chichele Professor of Economic History at the University of Oxford. His research focused on the history of industry, business, and technology, both in Britain and Europe.

Reviews

[Olly Colluphid]

This is a text book giving a tour of Britain's ecomic history through the industrial revolution. It is dry and dense, full of facts and ideas. It is a jumping off point for essays and investigations rather than a good read in itself.

Glad I've read it, but it was hard work at times! Which seems reasonable for a text book.

It didn't really address my query which was about the true impact of slavery in the period. Other than saying it is hard to work out, which is probably fair.

[Paul]

I read this for a first year degree course in economic and social history. Considering I spent my first year arguing about religion and philosophy, reading Camus and Sartre, drinking beer and chasing girls (not necessarily in that order), then the book must be ok because I passed the course.

[Neo_classical]

So Britain became strong when we embraced protectionism and mercantilism, and immediately began to lose our massive advantage when we abandoned these things and embraced the muh values which Right-Liberals tell us are British values (liberalism, free trade). It is quite entertaining seeing Mathias as an anti-Statist tiptoe around and admit that the State played a fundamental role in producing the environment for the mass expansion, but at the same time downplaying it as much as he can.

The State didn't impact it - only the tax system and trade system allowed ALL the other factors oh alright then that's totally different.

[Julian Haigh]

Non-ideological and full of stats. This is what economic history should be.

[Jarek]

Non-economist's thoughts: Fairly approachable for someone with only slight understanding of economics, although you might want to skip some of the denser tables and discussion.

In addition to titular economic history, also discusses conditions in 17th and 18th centuries that allowed the start of the industrial transformation, and discusses problems British industry ran into in second half of 19th and in 20th century as other countries caught up.

[Maurice Halton]

Peter Mathias' book is a standard for students of economic history. Simply a classic.

[Nico Macdonald]

Owned by Francis Pugh.