World History
Clark describes economic development from the "original foragers of the African savannah" to the nineteenth century passing through gains in production of food, better tools and more land to cultivate. These gains, he holds, were always offset by rises in population, what he calls the Malthusian Trap.
Among the figures and charts he uses to support his point, he cites 15 pounds of wheat as equivalent to a day's wage in ancient Babylon and from 11 to 13 pounds of wheat in the year 1800 in England. And he describes stature (a function of diet) as somewhat the same across this same span of time.
Clark writes that between 1760 and 1900 an unprecedented event occurred, "made possible by advances in knowledge." This event was a "rapid industrial growth fueled by increasing production efficiency," called the industrial revolution.
He describes the Industrial Revolution as coming first to England, between 1760 and 1800. It can argued, writes Clark, that the break from the Malthusian Trap occurred around the year 1600, 1800 or 1860.
More than just describing that this happened, Clark attempts to explain why it happened first in England, and for his last chapter he asks "Why Isn't the Whole World Developed?"
For me his questions brings to mind the American Indians and their part in the world's uneven economic development from many centuries ago. Indians in North America did partake in innovations when circumstances were right. They took to horses when horses became available.
Some of them farmed. They did not invent guns because they had no modern metals and machine industry or, also like Europeans before the Middle Ages, no knowledge about gunpowder. but when guns became available the Indians of North America began using them in place of spears and the bow and arrow.
The industrial revolution was the result of a long social and economic development, and Clark recognizes this. He describes the industrial revolution as the result of an irregular fluctuation from as far back as the year 1200.
He describes the ancient Romans as not having it, not even stirrups, riding horses as did the Indians, by holding on with their knees.
