The Industrial Revolutions

As the first Industrial Revolution was beginning to turn the world upside down, the Age of Enlightenment produced scientists whose breakthroughs helped shape that upside-down world. Today we discuss three of them: Antoine Lavoisier; Dr. Edward Jenner; and Sir Humphrey Davy.

From the 1760s to the 1830s, Great Britain went crazy for canals. America did too. These waterways helped speed up trade and fuel industrialization in the age before trains and highways. In the process, they created all kinds of new jobs and opportunities.Characters covered in this chapter include: Thomas Steers, the engineer who modernized river navigation in Lancashire; The Duke of Bridgewater, who built Britain’s first modern canal; James Brindley, who engineered the Bridgewater Canal and the Trent & Mersey Canal; Thomas Telford, the architect who built a huge iron aqueduct in Wales and “Neptune’s Staircase” in Scotland; William Weston, a British civil engineer who helped build the first canals in America; and Benjamin Henry Latrobe, a British architect who emigrated to the U.S. and helped build the new capital.

This month we explore the life, times, and ideas of one of history’s most controversial figures. The Industrial Revolution marked a turning point in history, and Karl Marx used a combination of philosophy, economics, politics, and history to try to explain it – and what comes next.
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As chemistry advanced in the 18th Century, it was applied to perhaps the all-time greatest dream of humankind: Learning how to fly. In this episode, we meet the men who made it possible as “Balloonmania” took off in France, and then across the industrializing world.Support the Industrial Revolutions on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/indrevpod

This week we discuss the life and times of the Father of Economics, including his native Scotland, his early years and education, his intellectual influences, his career, and his magnum opus: The Wealth of Nations.