jjares reviewed The Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution: A Captivating Guide to the Age of Reason and a Period of Major Industrialization on + 3278 more book reviews
There are two portions to this book and they fit together well. The first is about the change in thought that took place in the Western world. We learn that writing letters were important activities of learned men (and women - specifically called "Famille d'Alliance" for the women correspondents). In the next section, we learn why the Industrial Revolution took place in Great Britain first.
The Enlightenment --This book makes a valuable point that the European Renaissance began in the 1300s; the Scientific Revolution occurred in the 1500s and the Age of Enlightenment evolved in the 1700s. It also states that as science became more important, it shook the ground around religion, particularly the Catholic Church.
The authors have taken the time to give some biographical sketches of some of the more-popular (Rene' Descartes and Francis Bacon, for example) and less well-known practitioners of philosophical inquiry. I knew that philosophers and scientists and hobbyists had informal writing connections with each other. I was not aware of the "Republic of Letters" or (the women's version called) "Famille d'Alliance." These were formal writing 'round robins' that people shared their ideas and study pursuits.
Until reading this book, I did not know that Franklin was an extremely wealthy man by the time of the American Revolution. The American Enlightenment occurred because those Republic of Letters found their way across the ocean to people like Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Paine.
Industrial Revolution -- The Industrial Revolution is an encompassing term that means more than I thought before reading this book. Some of this book reminded me of the book and miniseries NORTH AND SOUTH (by Elizabeth Gaskell) which is about the changes in British manufacturing after the Industrial Revolution. This guide from Captivating History does a wonderful job of telling the story of how workers fought the changes because they were afraid for their jobs. This is the fascinating story of how much wealth was created but (unfortunately) by the loss of jobs of many workers.
At first, England wanted to keep their industrialization and wealth to themselves but people from other countries came to study their ways or purchased technologies for their own shores. This book makes an interesting point about how the rest of Europe and America learned and prospered.
This is an expert overview of the issues and thoughts that created profound changes in the world (as the people of the time knew it).
The Enlightenment --This book makes a valuable point that the European Renaissance began in the 1300s; the Scientific Revolution occurred in the 1500s and the Age of Enlightenment evolved in the 1700s. It also states that as science became more important, it shook the ground around religion, particularly the Catholic Church.
The authors have taken the time to give some biographical sketches of some of the more-popular (Rene' Descartes and Francis Bacon, for example) and less well-known practitioners of philosophical inquiry. I knew that philosophers and scientists and hobbyists had informal writing connections with each other. I was not aware of the "Republic of Letters" or (the women's version called) "Famille d'Alliance." These were formal writing 'round robins' that people shared their ideas and study pursuits.
Until reading this book, I did not know that Franklin was an extremely wealthy man by the time of the American Revolution. The American Enlightenment occurred because those Republic of Letters found their way across the ocean to people like Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Paine.
Industrial Revolution -- The Industrial Revolution is an encompassing term that means more than I thought before reading this book. Some of this book reminded me of the book and miniseries NORTH AND SOUTH (by Elizabeth Gaskell) which is about the changes in British manufacturing after the Industrial Revolution. This guide from Captivating History does a wonderful job of telling the story of how workers fought the changes because they were afraid for their jobs. This is the fascinating story of how much wealth was created but (unfortunately) by the loss of jobs of many workers.
At first, England wanted to keep their industrialization and wealth to themselves but people from other countries came to study their ways or purchased technologies for their own shores. This book makes an interesting point about how the rest of Europe and America learned and prospered.
This is an expert overview of the issues and thoughts that created profound changes in the world (as the people of the time knew it).
