What's the best POD to prevent the Second Industrial Revolution from occurring (whilst keeping the First)? And how would this affect the course of technological/socio-political development?
AHC/WI: No Second Industrial Revolution?
- Thread starter Fabius Maximus
- Start date
Flocculencio
Donor
The Second Industrial Revolution generally refers to the complex of technological developments in areas like production of steel in industrial quantities, development of the chemicals industry, electrification and long distance telecommunication, among others.
Comet strike on Northern Europe?
The Enlightenment Era political revolutions and reforms are not successful and reactionary regimes come to power in America, Britain, Germany and France?
This is a hard PoD.
Also the internal combustion engine. So you still have the steam engine and railroads, as well as things like textile and pottery factories, as well as some heavy chemical industries (sulfuric acid, etc.) which developed surprisingly early.
This seems almost impossible. Once you have the first industrial revolution well under way, the second industrial revolution seems almost inevitable. In its early stages, it mostly consists of logical extensions of known technologies from the first industrial revolution.
Alot of the things in the second industrial revolution were generally not that different and just came about because the knowledge was already acquired and just needed to be applied.
Well, this actually happened! There's a paper that argues Song China actually went through the First Industrial Revolution but not through the Second due to its lack of modern science. The 17c Dutch Republic was in a similar situation - it had aspects of early industrialization, including high urbanization, economic specialization, and a non-Malthusian combination of population growth and income growth; it did have modern science, but stagnated in the 18c since it did not yet have industrial applications like steam engines and modern chemicals.
This view places steam engines firmly in the Second Industrial Revolution. They were invented in the 18c, and railroads were invented toward the end of England's First Industrial Revolution, but in the 1840s steam power was still a small part of the British economy, whereas most of the changes since the 18c - mass production, regional specialization, the demographic transition, non-Malthusian population growth - did not involve steam power at all.
In both Song China and the Dutch Republic, the end was "foreign invaders conquered the state and plundered its resources." China went back to Malthusian growth, eventually (it took until the Qing era to surpass its early-13c population peak). The Netherlands managed to weather it since Europe was in a period of economic expansion, and the Netherlands itself was still rich.
This view places steam engines firmly in the Second Industrial Revolution. They were invented in the 18c, and railroads were invented toward the end of England's First Industrial Revolution, but in the 1840s steam power was still a small part of the British economy, whereas most of the changes since the 18c - mass production, regional specialization, the demographic transition, non-Malthusian population growth - did not involve steam power at all.
In both Song China and the Dutch Republic, the end was "foreign invaders conquered the state and plundered its resources." China went back to Malthusian growth, eventually (it took until the Qing era to surpass its early-13c population peak). The Netherlands managed to weather it since Europe was in a period of economic expansion, and the Netherlands itself was still rich.