"Few events in the history of humanity rival the Industrial Revolution. Following its onset in eighteenth-century Britain, sweeping changes in agriculture, manufacturing, transportation, and technology began to gain unstoppable momentum throughout Europe, North America, and eventually much of the world—with profound effects on socioeconomic and cultural conditions.
"In The Institutional Revolution, Douglas W. Allen offers a thought-provoking account of another, quieter revolution that took place at the end of the eighteenth century and allowed for the full exploitation of the many new technological innovations. Fundamental to this shift were dramatic changes in institutions, or the rules that govern society, which reflected significant improvements in the ability to measure performance—whether of government officials, laborers, or naval officers—thereby reducing the role of nature and the hazards of variance in daily affairs. Along the way, Allen provides readers with a fascinating explanation of the critical roles played by seemingly bizarre institutions, from dueling to the purchase of one’s rank in the British Army.
"Engagingly written, The Institutional Revolutiontraces the dramatic shift from premodern institutions based on patronage, purchase, and personal ties toward modern institutions based on standardization, merit, and wage labor—a shift which was crucial to the explosive economic growth of the Industrial Revolution."

I had no idea.

"At the close of the nineteenth century, industrialization and urbanization marked the end of the traditional understanding of society as rooted in agriculture. Urban Modernity examines the construction of an urban-centered, industrial-based culture—an entirely new social reality based on science and technology. The authors show that this invention of modernity was brought about through the efforts of urban elites—businessmen, industrialists, and officials—to establish new science- and technology-related institutions. International expositions, museums, and other such institutions and projects helped stem the economic and social instability fueled by industrialization, projecting contemporary developments as part of a steady continuum of scientific and technical progress. The authors examine the dynamic that connectied urban planning, museums, educational institutions, and expositions in Paris, London, Chicago, Berlin, and Tokyo from 1870 to 1930. "

"our modern belief in happiness — that happiness is a natural right — is a relatively recent development. It is a product of a dramatic revolution in human expectations carried out since the eighteenth century. Central to the development of Christianity, ideas of happiness assumed their modern form during the Enlightenment, when men and women were first introduced to the novel prospect that they could — in fact should — be happy in this life as opposed to the hereafter. Ultimately, the Enlightenment's recognition of happiness as a motivating ideal led to its consecration in the Declaration of Independence and France's Declaration of the Rights of Man. McMahon follows this great pursuit through to the present day, showing how our modern search for happiness continues to generate new forms of pleasure, but also, paradoxically, new forms of pain."

with commentary by Kenneth Arrow (!)

Comparing claims that electronic media make us stupid and distracted to the reality of life in a poor, low-tech community: "For people trying to work and run a family at the same time, not only are the consequences of missing something more important and potentially more dangerous, but it's impossible to take a break. A break means your kids are in danger, your family doesn't get fed and you're losing money that buys the food. Now, think about the fact that the majority of the world live just like this, and not in not in the world of email, tweets and instant messaging. Until about 100 years ago everyone lived like this. In other words, the ability to focus on a single task, relatively uninterrupted, is the strange anomaly in the history of our psychological development." Well-said, but misses the fact that the _rich_ could concentrate, because they had servants. (This is part of why Aristotle said leisure was a requirement for learning.)

"examines the emergence during the early modern era of mathematicians, chemists, and natural philosophers who, along with military engineers, navigators, and artillery officers, followed in the footsteps of Archimedes and synthesized scientific theory and military practice. It is the first collaborative scholarly assessment of these early military-scientific relationships ... investigates the deep connections between two central manifestations of Western power, examining the military context of the Scientific Revolution and the scientific context of the Military Revolution. Unlike the classic narratives of the Scientific Revolution that focus on the theories of, and conflicts between, Aristotelian and Platonic worldviews, ... highlights the emergence of the Archimedean ideal—... a symbiosis ... between the supply of mechanistic science and the demand for military capability. "

Marx as the prophet of the industrial revolution and globalization. (It really is remarkable how much he sounds like, say, _The Economist_ --- except for the bit about how the benefits of technology and globalization won't be truly realized until they're brought under human control, of course.)

How Europeans got to be so good at killing people.

See http://bactra.org/reviews/nations-and-nationalism/

Very nicely written, but someone should have made the point (which I learned from Dean Baker) that rising productivity lets the dependency ratio _and_ living standards rise.

"The last fifty years have brought us in the West the hitherto unimaginable prospect of death no longer being routine."

note in passing: _none_ of his 3 ways of organizing R&D matches the (uniquely successful) system of modern American science.

Brad dates the Singularity to 1870.

_Confucian China and Its Modern Fate_ is one of the best works of history I have ever read.

"Unified Growth Theory", i.e., economic growth. Talks a lot about attractors. Anything to this?

Surprisingly sane; notes at http://bactra.org/weblog/algae-2006-05.html

Do in Indo-European languages in fact have a vocabulary conducive to modern scientific concepts, or did they in fact have to force their way in?

"Sometimes, formal knowledge will indeed enhance the power of the central observer, the authority gazing down on its society. But there is no necessary reason why this should be so."

Or: X-files in the outback.

Brad reflects on the start of his economic history course; and also on the place of economics and scientific progress in modern history, and the reciprocity between history and social science

Looks interesting, but only superficially skimmed; to read

"Here is what I’m going to do: I’m going to argue that story tellers and readers have seen our planet — ever since it first became visible around 1750 — primarily through the huge range of tales of the fantastic that I’m here calling fantastika."

"he has built a very heavy structure on a very narrow base."

Making the obvious points that (1) his Malthusian mechanisms were at work in a lot of places, not just England, and (2) even if you take the heritability of personality traits at face value, it's very weak

Some supporting details for Bowles's review