Africans and the Industrial Revolution in England: A Study in International Trade and Economic Development

Abstract

Drawing on classical development theory and recent theoretical advances on the connection between expanding markets and technological developments, this book shows the critical role of expanding Atlantic commerce in the successful completion of England's industrialization process over the period 1650–1850. The contribution of Africans, the central focus of the book, is measured in terms of the role of diasporic Africans in large-scale commodity production in the Americas - of which expanding Atlantic commerce was a function - at a time when demographic and other socioeconomic conditions in the Atlantic basin encouraged small-scale production by independent populations, largely for subsistence. This is the first detailed study of the role of overseas trade in the Industrial Revolution. It revises inward-looking explanations that have dominated the field in recent decades, and shifts the assessment of African contribution away from the debate on profits.