Undergraduate Course: Technological Change in Global Economic History (ECSH10110)
Course Outline
| School | School of History, Classics and Archaeology |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 4 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 40 |
ECTS Credits | 20 |
| Summary | Technological change motivated by the pursuit of productivity gains is viewed as the holy grail of economic growth, leading to the First Industrial Revolution in Britain. This course reconsiders technological change in the manufacturing of cotton textiles and porcelain products in Britain, two processed goods from the East that represented and facilitated modern economic growth in Britain. |
| Course description |
Theories abound on why the First Industrial Revolution was British. Many of them argue, with varying degrees of stress on causal factors, that Britain industrialised because it was able to make certain commodities faster and cheaper, enabling a lead within the global economy that allowed it to break through the Malthusian frontier, triggering modern economic growth. What role did the import substitution of products previously imported from Asia play in stimulating technological change, and consequently the onset of modern economic growth? Taking two key commodities of the Early Modern global economy as test cases (cotton textiles from India and porcelain goods from China) we assess from week to week how the import substitution of these products led to technological change and eventually industrialisation. Students taking the course will critically consider mainstream productivity-based theories on technological change in economic history as well as new revisionist work that challenges this view from a global and material perspective.
Content note: The study of History inevitably involves the study of difficult topics that we encourage students to approach in a respectful, scholarly, and sensitive manner. Nevertheless, we remain conscious that some students may wish to prepare themselves for the discussion of difficult topics. In particular, the course organiser has outlined that the following topics may be discussed in this course, whether in class or through required or recommended primary and secondary sources: imperialism, colonialism, slave trade. While this list indicates sensitive topics students are likely to encounter, it is not exhaustive because course organisers cannot entirely predict the directions discussions may take in tutorials or seminars, or through the wider reading that students may conduct for the course.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | A pass in 40 credits of third level historical courses or equivalent.
Students should only be enrolled on this course with approval from the History Honours Programme Administrator. |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Develop an understanding of the key debates and approaches to the study of technological change for industrialisation and its significance for the onset of modern economic growth.
- Develop an understanding of the study of materials and their significance in bringing new insights to key debates in economic history.
- Critically analyse a variety of textual and material sources to extract historically relevant information from them.
- Appreciate specific methods of investigating material textile objects and gathering information/data from these objects.
- Develop techniques for interpreting data and communicate insights to answer historical questions.
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Reading List
Beverly Lemire, Fashion's Favourite: The Cotton Trade and the Consumer in Britain, 1660-1800, Oxford University Press, 1991
Prasannan Parthasarathi, Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia did not: Global Economic Divergence, 1600-1850, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2011
Alka Raman, Indian Cotton Textiles and British industrialisation: Evidence of Comparative Learning in the British Cotton Industry in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, Economic History Review, Vol. 75(2), May 2022, pp. 447-474
Alka Raman, From Hand to Machine: How Indian Cloth Quality Shaped British Cotton Spinning Technology, Technology and Culture, Vol 64(3), July 2023, pp. 707-736
Robert Allen, The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective, Cambridge University Press, 2009
Joel Mokyr, The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress, Oxford University Press, 1992
Robert Finlay, The Pilgrim Art: Cultures of Porcelain in World History, University of California Press, London, 2010
Anne Gerritsen, The City of Blue and White: Chinese Porcelain and the Early Modern World, Cambridge University Press, London, 2020
A.E Musson and Eric Robinson, Science and Technology in the Industrial Revolution, Manchester University Press, 1969
Nathan Rosenberg, Exploring the Black Box: Technology, Economics and History, Cambridge University Press, 1994
Charles Singer, E.J. Holmyard, A.R. Hall and Trevor I. Williams (eds) A History of Technology, Vol IV: The Industrial Revolution, Oxford University Press, London, 1958
Robert Fox (ed), Technological Change: Methods and Themes in the History of Technology, Routledge, 1996 |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Understanding of key debates and approaches to the study of industrialisation and its significance to modern economic growth
Written and oral communication skills
Research skills, related to archival and material sources
Presentation skills and group work
Ability to critically assess secondary sources |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Prof Diana Paton
Tel: (0131 6)50 4578
Email: |
Course secretary | |
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