The first synthesis of Britain's long-term economic performance in more than a decade, this book examines why British economic growth has failed to keep pace with the performance of the other advanced industrial economies since 1870.

This book sets out the present state of the discussion of the decline in British industry and introduces new directions in which the debate is now proceeding.

This eleventh edition was developed during the encyclopaedia's transition from a British to an American publication. Some of its articles were written by the best-known scholars of the time and it is considered to be a landmark encyclopaedia for scholarship and literary style.

James Hamilton-Paterson turns his literary and analytical skills to the wider picture of Britain's lost industrial and technological civilisation.

The decline of British Industry in the late Victorian and early Edwardian period is the subject of major concern to economic and modern British historians. This book sets out the present state of the discussion and introduces new directions in which the debate about the British decline is now proceeding: Among other themes, the book examines: * the role of the service sector alongside manufacturing * the distinctiveness of the British regions * the state's role in the British decline including an analysis of its responsibility for the maintenance and modernization of infrastructure * the association of aristocratic values with entrepreneurial vitality * how British historians have discussed success and failure, with a critique of the literature of decline.

The place of science and technology in the British economy and society is widely seen as critical to our understanding of the British 'decline'. There is a long tradition of characterising post-1870 Britain by its lack of enthusiasm for science and by the low social status of the practitioners of technology. David Edgerton examines these assumptions, analysing the arguments for them and pointing out the different intellectual traditions from which they arise. Drawing on a wealth of statistical data, he argues that British innovation and technical training were much stronger than is generally believed, and that from 1870 to 1970 Britain's innovative record was comparable to that of Germany. This book is a comprehensive study of the history of British science and technology in relation to economic performance. It will be of interest to scientists and engineers as well as economic historians, and will be invaluable to students approaching the subject for the first time.

Why did the industrial revolution take place in 18th century Britain and not elsewhere in Europe or Asia? Robert Allen argues that the British industrial revolution was a successful response to the global economy of the 17th and 18th centuries.

Managing Industrial Decline examines the dramatic decline of the British coal industry through the lens of comparative business history, challenging the prevailing belief that the industry's decline was due primarily to global economic factors and instead demonstrating that entrepreneurial failings of individual coal firms contributed significantly to the problem. Through a comparative analysis of company histories, Dintenfass shows how the full range of business operations at British coal firms, including labor management policies, technological choices, and marketing practices, affected their performance. The histories of individual firms demonstrate that the managements could improve productivity, increase sale prices, and sustain profitability, even as the coal trade succumbed to cyclical depression and secular decline. According to Dintenfass, comparisons between the individual firms and the regional coal industries to which they belonged show that neighboring firms were slow to introduce the modest innovations that the successful firms pioneered. Since there were few barriers to the implementation of these strategies, it appears that Britain's coal masters miscalculated their costs and benefits, contributing to the problem by failing to adopt inexpensive and accessible second-best solutions to production and commercial problems. Managing Industrial Decline, breaks new ground in the field of business history and restores entrepreneurship to its proper place in the analysis of industrial decline.

Drawing upon a wide array of sources, Martin Wiener explores the English ambivalence to modern industrial society.

Michael Dintenfass provides a challenging account of Britain's economic performance since 1870. He combines a succinct, clearly-written survey of recent scholarly work in British economic and business history with an original interpretive alternative to the institutionalized accounts of Britain's relative decline. Dintenfass addresses both specifically economic questions and socio-historical questions to place Britain's economic history in its broadest context.