The Beginnings of Indwstrialization

It may seem curious to speak of industrialization as beginning around 1500. Industrialization is often regarded as synonymous with the rise of mechanized manufacturing in centralized facrories, and this did nor occur even in England unti l 1760-80, and in Germany not unti l 1830-50. But machines and factories were only late landmarks albeit important ones in a much longer process of industrial growth in Europe, dating back to at least 1500. This long-term industrialization was based almost wholly on decentralized work in producers' own houses, using domestic labour and a simple, slowly changing technology. Yet it was responsible for a gradual expansion in the proportion of the labour-force working in industry and the share of the total output of the economy represented by manufactures. It was also responsible for the emergence, between about 1500 and about 1800, of what German historians have called Gewerbelandschaften, ' indus-