The Roman Empire never could have experienced an industrial revolution for numerous factors, including never utilizing coal. The technological level, and their overall mode of production, simply wasn't there. People think of the Middle Ages as a time of regression, but that's flatly not true. The European "Dark Ages" witnessed the invention of three-field crop rotation and the heavy plow. These were big deals, because the increased food surplus allowed more people to work at other tasks, including technological innovation. The later Middle Ages saw the development of effective guns and the printing press (itself modeled after other mechanical contrivances).
To summarize, was a steady increase in mechanization and technology throughout the Middle Ages in Europe. The Netherlands were an early leader in the 17th century. hey had what could be described as an incipient industrial revolution. It got to the point where (IIRC) a minority of the population was employed in agriculture (which was astonishing for the time). After around 1700, various factors (among them the ascendance of British power) caused somewhat of a deindustrialization.
Across the channel, the British starting using coal (and coke for steel) because they were running out of wood. The same situation happened in another place, several hundred years before. The Southern Song dynasty of China was more-or-less forced to step away from traditional Confucian agriculture-focused economic policy due to the loss of the North, among other things. Capital-intensive industry increased (such as blast furnaces). They also increasingly advanced mechanical devices. Increased iron production caused them to start running out of wood. Like the British did hundreds of years after, they switched to coke for iron production. Their iron/steel production reached around 100,000 tons/year, which is absolutely astonishing. Sadly, the Mongols were still able to overrun them.
The Southern Song Empire was the precisely the wrong time and the wrong place for an industrial revolution, even though everything else completely fit together.
I've heard it postulated that the industrial revolution was only possible because of fossil fuels (obviously), but also they if we use too much easily accessible fuel, whether that's coal or oil, and had some kind of dark age, we would be unable to restart civilization.
To summarize, was a steady increase in mechanization and technology throughout the Middle Ages in Europe. The Netherlands were an early leader in the 17th century. hey had what could be described as an incipient industrial revolution. It got to the point where (IIRC) a minority of the population was employed in agriculture (which was astonishing for the time). After around 1700, various factors (among them the ascendance of British power) caused somewhat of a deindustrialization.
Across the channel, the British starting using coal (and coke for steel) because they were running out of wood. The same situation happened in another place, several hundred years before. The Southern Song dynasty of China was more-or-less forced to step away from traditional Confucian agriculture-focused economic policy due to the loss of the North, among other things. Capital-intensive industry increased (such as blast furnaces). They also increasingly advanced mechanical devices. Increased iron production caused them to start running out of wood. Like the British did hundreds of years after, they switched to coke for iron production. Their iron/steel production reached around 100,000 tons/year, which is absolutely astonishing. Sadly, the Mongols were still able to overrun them.
The Southern Song Empire was the precisely the wrong time and the wrong place for an industrial revolution, even though everything else completely fit together.