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frogontrombone t1_ir03hg2 wrote

Reply to comment by Borazon in Why No Roman Industrial Revolution? by Magister_Xehanort

Great ways to put it with a blacksmith making an engineer block.

The part of the thesis i found so compelling was that Britain had a unique combination of resources and economics that presented creative pressure to invent that was not present otherwise. I think the Netherlands is a great counterpoint because even very inefficient windmills were enough to get the land reclamation done, so there was no creative or economic pressure to create precision pumps, for example.

To your point, I do think that the medieval use of wind and water turbines itself constitutes a "little industrial revolution", as these were not present to the same degree in antiquity.

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Borazon t1_ir08jtr wrote

The little industrial revolution in the Netherlands was how wind energy was used to turn Zaandam, the region above Amsterdam into one of the premier shipbuilding facilities in the Netherlands, able to turn out 1 ship every two days. And it was likewise a combination of technological factors, geographical and historical factors that enabled it.

Geographical

  • Amsterdam's position was great for trade, for both Canal/Atlantic trade, trade via inland barges and most importantly, the Baltic sea routes.
  • Via the Baltic Amsterdam had access to lumber forests from Scandinavia (as the Netherlands never had much forests)

Technological

  • New ship designs like the Fluit which required fewer personal to man, meaning cheaper trade (at the max, half of the ships passing through the Kattegat at Denmark were Dutch)
  • New windmill innovation, in the crankshafts for transferring power and new designs for lumber cutting with reciprocating blades

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and to truly create Amsterdam's golden century, lots of historical opportunities, among which:

  • the discovery of new sea routes to the indies
  • the availability of much manpower in the form of refugees from the 30 year war; the availability and knowledge of new forms of finance from rich Huguonets and Belgium refugees from the 80 year war both drawn in part by Amsterdam's religious freedoms.

Which allowed Amsterdam to turn the reliable Baltic trade into investments in the far east, in turn powering investment into the Netherlands and a golden age of arts. Do keep in mind that many of these sort of things interact with each other, similarly as in the English industrial revolution.

I'm both an Archeologist and a Mechanical engineering by education, so I always loved these kind of technological foundations to large cultural/historical changes.

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Wintersbone7 t1_ir88yhr wrote

Don’t forget Jewish exiles from the Spanish Inquisition who brought much needed financial and other professional skills that helped monetize this industrial revolution

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QueenOfGehenna45 t1_is6ssmr wrote

I thought the end of the cottage industry was a little bit later though?

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