Engage with progress through technology and trade!

A reply I gave on Quara about proto industrialization. I discuss the origins of wool, cotton, copper, iron, steam power and some ways in which they are linked. If industrialisation means the organisation of the factory system and the automation of work there is one answer. If industrialisation means new (or at least abundant) materials and forms of energy, there is another. I am more qualified to discuss the second but I will start with the first anyway. Both required peace and improved agriculture to gain momentum. There is also the question of what is proto-industrialisation, which I shall treat as trade and technology that creates large new markets, especially for exports. The Saxons had exported woollen cloaks to the continent. In 1066, William the Conqueror of Normandy, became the ruler of England. Importantly for this story, his wife was Matilda of Flanders and he had major Flemish allies such as Eustace of Boulogne,, then Flemish. Flanders was a major cloth weaving centre. For c...