I am biased that the Industrial Revolution was a time of great prosperity for not just the business men, but also for the general population. However, I am trying to challenge my perspective. I often hear that the Industrial Revolution proved laissez-faire free markets don't work. However, when I search for history books I am only reading descriptions that seem to affirm my bias or they aren't concerned with the economics of the period. I found one book that argues against my bias, but it's a Marxist criticism where I am looking more for an American progressive criticism. Perhaps, I am mistaken in narrowing my search to American progressivism. What books do you recommend?
(I have asked this question in a few places, but I have not received a reply so I decided that a post is necessary even though this sub has a dedicated book thread which I already posted on.)
I would recommend reading Andreas Malm's "Fossil Capital: The rise of steam power and the roots of global warming" (London: Verso, 2016). Malm is a political ecologist, and he attempts in this book to argue that the global reliance on fossil fuels developed as a result of early-nineteenth century capitalists desire to better control their workers to increase labour productivity and workplace obedience. In essence, Malm argues that steam power was a more viable way of powering industry than other renewable sources - ironically, the technology for water power was there in the 1820s, but it provided no benefits for capitalists in terms of labour relations. The reason why I recommend you to read this book is that Malm, although focusing on the environmental aspects of the development of industry, really paints a portrait of industrialists and capitalists as essentially driven by the pursuit of capital growth and that they'd stop at nothing - even changing power and labour relations - to do that. This book really opened my eyes to how devilish early capitalists could be in their pursuit of profit, and I say this as someone who doesn't necessarily agree with Marxian economic theory. Malm does base his economic theory of fossil capital in Marxian economic terms, but the analysis itself is not necessarily Marxist and understands the Industrial Revolution in more rounded terms. In sum, this book would give you a good picture of how the global climate crisis we face today is really a result of capitalists running amuck in the pursuit of an energy system that gave them better terms for labour relations.
I'd also suggest to check out Christophe Bonneuil and Jean-Baptiste Fressoz's "The Shock of the Anthropocene: the earth, history, and us" (London: Verso, 2016). Although it doesn't focus on the industrial revolution throughout, it gives a good portrait of the effects of capitalism running wild.
Hope this helps!!
Hi there anyone interested in recommending things to OP! While you might have a title to share, this is still a thread on /r/AskHistorians, and we still want the replies here to be to an /r/AskHistorians standard - presumably OP would have asked at /r/history or /r/askreddit if they wanted non-specialist opinion. So give us some indication why the thing you're recommending is valuable, trustworthy, or applicable! Posts that provide no context for why you're recommending a particular podcast/book/novel/documentary/etc, and which aren't backed up by a historian-level knowledge on the accuracy and stance of the piece, will be removed.