British Technology and European Industrialization
The Norwegian Textile Industry in the Mid-Nineteenth Century

Kristine Bruland looks at the Norwegian experience to show how a small economy created a technological infrastructure.

Kristine Bruland (Author)

9780521891554, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 13 November 2003

204 pages
22.9 x 15.3 x 1.7 cm, 0.325 kg

How did small European economies acquire the technologies and skills needed to industrialize in the nineteenth century? In this important contribution to a long-standing debate, Kristine Bruland looks at the Norwegian experience to show how a technological infrastructure was created, and suggests that much of this was due to the efforts of British machine makers who from the mid 1840s vigorously sought foreign markets. Providing not only basic technical services but also skilled labour to set up and then supervise the operation of the new machinery, British textile engineering firms were able to supply a complete 'package' of services, significantly easing the initial technical problems faced by Norwegian entrepreneurs. Kristine Bruland's case-study of the Norwegian textile industry demonstrates clearly the paradox that Britain's entrepreneurial efforts in the supply of capital goods overseas were largely responsible for the creation of the technical industrial bases of many of her major foreign competitors.

List of tables
List of figures
Preface
Map showing location of firms
1. Technology and European growth
2. The historiography of European industrialization
3. Britain and Norway, 1800–1845: two transitions
4. Acquisition of technologies by the Norwegian textile firms
5. Flows of technological information
6. British textile engineering and the Norwegian textile industry
7. British agents of Norwegian enterprises
8. British workers and the transfer of technology to Norway
9. Interrelations among Norwegian firms
10. The European dimension
Appendices
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Economic history [KCZ], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], British & Irish history [HBJD1], European history [HBJD]