[lazyier]

Trying to point out single factor is a exercise in stupidity.

Time matters, places matter, culture matters, food, existing technology, technological connections with other regions, math, scientific progress, etc etc.

For example you need to be able to make blueprints. To make blueprints you need the math technology, the printing technology, and drafting technology, and the language necessary to all be developed first.

There are hundreds of thousands of different variables. Probably millions. More probably trillions.

None of them aligned for the Romans. All of them aligned for coal mining industry in Britain.

[onlyrealcuzzo]

> There are hundreds of thousands of different variables. Probably millions. More probably trillions.

Obviously. The point of the book was to highlight the major factors.

> None of them aligned for the Romans. All of them aligned for coal mining industry in Britain.

> Trying to point out single factor is a exercise in stupidity.

Are you saying the coal mining industry is the cause? Because the industrial revolution leads to the explosion of the coal mining industry, not the other way around.

Why do you need so much coal? For steam engines.

Why do you need steam engines? Because people and animals aren't enough any more.

[origin_path]

The article argues it was the other way around - that pumping water out of mines was the use case that allowed steam engines to be funded and improved to the point that they could be used for other things.

[onlyrealcuzzo]

This is really interesting! And it's missing from A Farewell to Alms (IIRC).

It seems the textile industry and the train are the large drivers that demand more coal. But it doesn't mention the water pumping problem or the atmospheric steam engine.

That being said - assuming you have an abundance of "Big Burly Men and Daft Animals" - as the article put it - I'm skeptical the steam engine would've found a viable use.

Assuming England hadn't run out of forested land - they wouldn't have been extracting so much coal.

I still think the key points from A Farewell to Alms stand - but this is a super interesting nugget that should've made the book (if it didn't).

[GolfPopper]

The British documentary series Connections (three series, one in 1978 and the others in the 1990s) do an amazing job of showing all the strange and different paths that led to our modern world.

[insane_dreamer]

I think it was the British textile industry that was the primary driver of industrialization (of course it used coal to power machines to do the work)