From Domestic Manufacture to Industrial Revolution : The Case of the Rhineland Textile Districts

This book is an economic, historical, and sociological examination of rural textile industries in the Lower Rhineland beginning in the sixteenth century, culminating with the age of factory organization in the early 1800s. Drawing on archival sources not available to English language readers, the late Kisch analyzes the evolution of entrepreneurial innovations, the growth of a skilled labor force and changes in institutional mechanisms and patterns of social behavior that prepared this critical economic region for the innovation of factory production that came with the industrial revolution. This book is an economic, historical, and sociological examination of rural textile industries in the Lower Rhineland beginning in the sixteenth century and culminating with the age of factory organization in the early 1800s. Drawing on archival sources not available to English language readers, Kisch analyses the evolution of entrepreneurial innovations, the growth of a skilled labour force, and changes in institutional mechanisms and patterns of social behaviour that prepared this critical economic region for the innovation of factory production that came with the industrial revolution An economic, historical, and sociological study of rural textile industries in the Lower Rhineland, from the 16th century up to the age of factory organization in the early 1800s.