Page 264 - Encyclopedia Of World History

614 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

short time. Whether coincidentally or otherwise, Song growth); an “industrious revolution,” in which people
China also saw a marked institutional shift away from began to work longer and harder (extensive growth) but
self-reliant estates that made heavy use of compulsory also more efficiently (intensive growth); and technologi-
labor; instead, people at all levels of society began to rely cal change, which increased slowly before accelerating
more on markets and to specialize in a few goods or serv- sharply in the industrial revolution of the nineteenth
ices they could sell in exchange for others.The growth of century.
markets was certainly not new or unique to Song China,
but that appears to be where it first reached the critical The Industrious Revolution
level at which the process became self-sustaining. This Populations across Eurasia recovered from the fourteenth-
pattern of commercialization spread outward from China century plague during the following century eventually
and a few other centers, though the degree to which it reaching previous peak levels; but this time, they didn’t
prevailed in any particular society remains controversial stop: For reasons that are unclear, world population had
among historians. reach almost 1 billion by 1800, roughly twice its previ-
Migrations and conquests could also suddenly spread ous peak. Land under cultivation also increased, though
a great many innovations all at once. Muslim conquerors not as fast as population: Frontiers were pushed back in
spread rice, sugar, oranges, cotton, and other crops west- Eastern Europe, Southwest China, the interior of India,
ward, having earlier obtained these plants via trade with the Americas, and many other places. In many cases, the
India; they also played a very important role in spread- advance of cultivation went along with small but signifi-
ing originally Persian irrigation techniques, and medical cant technical improvements: new seeds better suited to
techniques derived from the ancient Mediterranean, harsh conditions, better water pumps for irrigation,
India, and the Arab world. But more often, centuries sep- improved knowledge of crop rotation, etc. At the same
arated major inventions, and they spread rather slowly. time, yields per acre rose, though often painfully slowly.
By Roman times, agricultural yields in parts of Italy had For instance, the practice of double-cropping—squeezing
reached levels that would not be exceeded until 1800 in a second crop on the same piece of land in one year
(though the number of places in Europe achieving those —became much more common, especially in East and
yields increased as efficient practices slowly spread).The South Asia.This helped support more people, but the sec-
same was true of the most productive farms in East ond crop often yielded less output for each day of work
China, which by 1200 at the latest had reached yields not than the primary crop. In nonagricultural occupations as
reliably exceeded until well into the twentieth century. well, output rose, but hours worked seem to have risen
Even within the small space of England, the top wheat even faster.
yields on medieval manors set a standard that did not In Europe, where the best data exists, the number of
become common until roughly 1800. Every piece of land hours of work required to earn a day’s food soared dur-
is subtly different from others in soil chemistry, drainage, ing the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, and then
sun and shade, and so on, and before the advent of mod- took a very long time (in some cases into the 1930s) to
ern chemistry, adopting what worked on somebody else’s return to early fifteenth-century levels. Consequently,
farm was a laborious trial-and-error exercise for even the families worked more hours per year to make ends meet:
best-informed and most diligent farmers. Men worked longer, more women worked for pay, and
By the fifteenth century, however, a new phase of more children worked as well. One study suggests that
growth was beginning to appear in various parts of the the average work year for adult males rose over 20 per-
world, composed of three loosely related elements: more cent in England just between 1760 and 1800. Though
rapid population growth and land clearance (extensive evidence elsewhere is spottier, a similar “industrious rev-