Was it a lack of manpower? Was it geographic circumstances? Why couldn’t civilizations like, say, Babylon or Rome have an Industrial Revolution?
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I take every opportunity I can find to share content from Bret Devereaux:
His argument is that essentially for an industrial revolution (mainly the invention of the steam engine) to occur, the product of every stage of the technological progress needs to be useful and valuable. The core principle being that you can’t have a good steam engine without first massively deploying and investing in improving a bad steam engine.
Only the British during the 1800’s had a use for a bad steam engine due to their unique geographic landscape (plenty of coal, few trees)
[https://acoup.blog/2022/08/26/collections-why-no-roman-industrial-revolution/](https://acoup.blog/2022/08/26/collections-why-no-roman-industrial-revolution/)
Is a fantastic and enlightening read that gets directly at this question
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