Books by E. A. (University of Cambridge) Wrigley

Charts Britain's transformation from the European periphery to a global economic power over three centuries from the reign of Elizabeth I to Victoria. The book explores how new energy resources, population growth and urbanisation enabled Britain to overcome the constraints of an organic economy and forge a path to industrialisation.

By accessing new sources of energy, the productivity of the average worker was increased and industry transformed. Anthony Wrigley explains how economic growth in England accelerated, providing a unique insight into understanding the industrial revolution. This book makes essential reading for students and scholars of British economic history.

Industrial Growth and Population Change deliberately strays across the conventional boundaries of social scientific analysis, embracing economic history, historical geography, demography and sociology. The underlying thesis is that economic historians have tended too readily to suppose that the national entity is the appropriate unit of study.

Using data from 26 Anglican parish registers between the sixteenth and mid-nineteenth century, this book demonstrates the value of the technique of family reconstitution as a means of obtaining accurate and detailed information about fertility, morality, and nuptiality in the past.

In analysing the population of a country over several centuries, the authors qualify, confirm or overturn traditional assumptions and marshal a mass of statistical material into a series of clear, lucid arguments about past patterns of demographic behaviour and their relationship to economic trends.

Our understanding of what constituted the industrial revolution has changed fundamentally in recent decades. Sir E. A. Wrigley, the leading historian of industrial England, here sets out to expose the inadequacy of what was once the received wisdom and to suggest what he believes should stand in its place.