Time and Work in England, 1750-1830

Time and Work in England, 1750-1830. By Hans-Joachim both. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000. viii + 312 pp. Figures. Cloth, $65.00 ISBN 0-199-24194-5.

This is a bold, original, intelligent, and important book. It may perhaps be wrong, or it may be not completely right, for reasons that I will discuss below. But its argument is constructed so carefully and its conclusions are so significant that, if successful refutations are to come, they will have to be presented to the same high standard.

Hans-Joachim Voth's analysis takes as its subject a central issue in one of the great unresolved debates in British economic history. What stimulated industrialization and what did that …