When it comes to the industrial revolution you can have multiple explanation of why it happened at that specific time.
A common myth is for example that the Greeks had the steam engine but just didn’t use it for economic purposes because they had slave. That’s wrong. Their copper-wielding ability wasn’t good enough to build technology like Thomas Newcomen’s steam engine.
Precursor technologies are more important than the common myth acknowledges. Whether it’s replacing hand written books with printed books after cheaper paper and durable paper replaced vellum or whether it’s targeted phage therapy replacing antibiotics after gene sequencing made it cheap enough to find out what harmful bacteria are in an ill patient, precursor technologies matter a lot.
When it comes to the industrial revolution you can have multiple explanation of why it happened at that specific time.
A common myth is for example that the Greeks had the steam engine but just didn’t use it for economic purposes because they had slave. That’s wrong. Their copper-wielding ability wasn’t good enough to build technology like Thomas Newcomen’s steam engine.
Precursor technologies are more important than the common myth acknowledges. Whether it’s replacing hand written books with printed books after cheaper paper and durable paper replaced vellum or whether it’s targeted phage therapy replacing antibiotics after gene sequencing made it cheap enough to find out what harmful bacteria are in an ill patient, precursor technologies matter a lot.