Labour-Intensive Industrialization in Global History
Reassessing the Role of Labour in Economic Development
Kaoru Sugihara editor Gareth Austin editor
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Taylor & Francis Ltd
Published:24th Jan '13
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
This hardback is available in another edition too:
- Paperback£53.99(9781138901148)
This book reexamines the role of labour in industrialization, emphasizing its importance in shaping global economic history and future development.
This volume provides an insightful discussion on the significance of labour-intensive industrialization, featuring contributions from leading economic historians. The authors aim to foster a new academic dialogue on global economic history, challenging the traditional focus on technology, capital, and entrepreneurship. By shifting the spotlight onto labour, the book emphasizes its crucial role in shaping the timing, pace, and quality of industrialization across different regions.
Historically, labour has often been viewed as just another factor of production, relegated to a passive role in the industrialization narrative. However, Labour-Intensive Industrialization in Global History argues that it was the absorption of labour and its qualitative improvement over centuries that truly underpinned global industrialization. While developments in science and technology in the West were significant, the book highlights the importance of resource- and energy-saving technologies that emerged more recently, which were vital for the diffusion of industrialization worldwide.
The authors explore the labour-intensive, resource-saving path that developed in East Asia, influenced by Western technologies and institutions. This approach offers a realistic framework for further industrialization that aligns with rising living standards while minimizing environmental degradation. Through its comprehensive analysis, Labour-Intensive Industrialization in Global History invites readers to reconsider the role of labour in economic history and its implications for future development.
"This volume presents an exciting set of economic explanations of global industrial development that fit the historical evidence far better than standard Anglo- or Euro-centric accounts." - Jeff Horn, Department of History, Manhatten College, in EH.Net
"This collection of high-quality essays will interest a wide cross-section of economic historians and economists. The book offers a perspective on long-term industrial and economic development which is almost breath-taking in its range and simplicity... No longer confined to conference papers and sometimes rather obscure journals, the central ideas contained in this collection will doubtless lead to a great deal of interest and further research." - Porphant Ouyyanont, School of Economics, Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University, Journal of Contemporary Asia
"All in all this edited volume is a successful attempt to bring authorities in economic history in dialogue and discuss and assess use and limitations of LII as a perspective." - M. Erdem Kabadayi, Istanbul Bilgi University
"This book can be expected to lead academic interchanges between economists and historians in order to consider potentia between economists and historians in order to consider potential development on a global scale...they contributed to opening discussions about the possibility to utilize the local point of view into the comparative histories that the discipline of Global History has promoted for 20 years." - Atsuko Munemura, Kansai University
"…this carefully compiled collection not only demonstrates clearly that development paths have diverged considerably in the past, and that successful paths may be based on very different combinations of elements, but also that there are many total or partial failures, while turning points within individual paths have often resulted from non-economic causes." - Marcel van der Linden, International Institute of Social History
ISBN: 9780415455527
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 770g
314 pages