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This book explores the role that energy has played in the economic history of Europe, highlighting the link between energy consumption and economic development. Using three industrial revolutions as the organizing principle, it shows that the path of the modern economy has not been a straightforward story of a constant rate of increase in the use of energy. Instead, the overall trajectory of energy use within Europe follows a logistic S-shaped curve. Three phases can be identified: the first phase, 1500–1800, was marked by little growth in overall energy consumption; the second phase, 1800–1970, is the Industrial Age, which saw explosive expansion in energy use, except during the World Wars and interwar period; the third period, 1970–2008, was marked by stabilization in energy consumption per capita. Based on these developments, the book considers the drivers of energy transitions as well as the economic efficiency of energy use.

Many today believe the world has entered the Third Industrial Age, during which technological improvements in robotics and automation will boost productivity and efficiency, implying significant gains for companies. These advancements have three biases: they tend to be capital-intensive (favoring those with financial resources), skill-intensive (favoring those with a high level of technical proficiency), and labor saving (reducing the total number of unskilled and semi-skilled jobs). The pundits speculate the economic impact on the job market will be significant and will present serious social and political challenges for society in growing inequality and the provision of safety nets to mitigate the consequences of disruptive technological progress. History has shown capitalist markets and business enterprises are incredibly efficient at turning technological advances into profitable businesses and providing incentives to discover new technologies. They succeed because companies that compete successfully with each other to provide benefits for clients are rewarded handsomely.

This chapter surveys how the two women automata and the larger set of Enlightenment automata and ideas about them “traveled” from their eighteenth-century origins, through the various phases of industrialization in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and were increasingly used over this period as symbols of industrial modernity overall. The journey through the industrial age demonstrates how widely eighteenth-century automata were used and reveals the conduits through which they remained visible and credible motifs throughout this long time window, to this day. Representative texts from key episodes are used to provide an overview, treating some in greater detail to explain the origins of explicit and implicit assumptions about Enlightenment automata and their role in our imagination of the machine age.

Interest in Egypt in 1822 was geographically and socially diverse. Among the fashionable London crowds who patronised Giovanni Belzoni, the clichés of “mystery” often associated with Egyptomania prevailed, but these were much less dominant in other social contexts. Among dissenting groups, especially in Northern England, new readings of ancient Egypt challenged establishment domination of the Greek and Roman classics. Ancient Egypt became a “classical” civilization for the industrial age. New sciences such as geology, phrenology and evolutionary thought vied with providence as frameworks in which to discuss ancient Egypt. By the 1840s Egyptology had become a radical cause, dominated by Unitarians and other heterodox thinkers. Egypt was a safe forum in which to discuss dangerous ideas concerning the relationship between science and theology, tradition and innovation, democracy and autocracy. Not until much later did the hieroglyphic decipherment in 1822 have substantial impact in Britain.

The conclusion reviews Ovshinsky’s accomplishments and historical significance. Ovshinsky is now gaining mare recognition. In May 2015 he was posthumously inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. During his lifetime he “saw the future” because he envisioned new possibilities and consequences that others were unable to imagine. His innovations, which began with new amorphous and disordered materials, became the basis for new technological systems capable of changing society for the better. Although he made important scientific discoveries, his work was never a part of normal science, and his inventions were aimed not just at incremental technological advances but at transformational social change. Finally, while the conclusion considers how his career spanned, and to some extent helped bring about, the transition from the industrial to the information age, it also notes his continuing ties with the social and economic culture of his youth.

This chapter demonstrates how the general public resisted moral reform efforts through the subversive pursuit of pleasure. What early Americans concerned with virtue had disparagingly called “luxury” became a positive symbol of high-status consumption. With the rise of the Industrial Age, Americans struggled over who was to gain the benefits of economic expansion. Yet, luxury was only permissible to those who could afford it; those without were expected to remain rational and controlled. The struggle over class control became a racial struggle over the right to a meat-rich diet, as laborers worked against the admission of ethnic groups that they perceived as non-meat eaters, who would in turn compete against them for a meat-affording wage.

This chapter examines the rise of commercialism in American higher education. Popularly known as Stanford University, Leland Stanford Junior University was exceptional both because of the Stanfords' thirty-million-dollar endowment—the largest gift in the history of higher education up to that time—and because it represented the commercial fortune one couple could amass as a result of changes to the nation's political economy during the second half of the nineteenth century. Thus, when Stanford University opened to students in 1891, it served as a conspicuous manifestation of commercialism's rise in American higher education. Indeed, Stanford University's founding grant reflected the rise of a social ethos of commercialism in higher education when it stated that the institution's central “object” was “to qualify its students for personal success.” While scientific and technological advances increased the number of professions from which students could choose, the industrial age accelerated the growth of a commercial society.

The primary reason for poverty is that people are unmotivated to work, whether due to poor health, poor education, poor work habits, limited opportunities to take up good jobs, or other reasons. To change this, they need a goal worth reaching for, not a drip to keep them just alive. Income redistribution has its role, but without economic opportunities we will end up only with a crowded ward of sick patients. Poverty has to be solved by economic growth. Income redistribution without economic growth cannot solve poverty; in the long run, it will break the back of our economy and our public finances. Hong Kong does not have a big problem of destitute people but a huge problem of households in near-poverty that do not see a future for themselves and their children.

This chapter explains Aron’s three meanings of freedom. One is his conception in contrast to de Tocqueville and the young Marx. Another is his conception in comparison with F.A. Hayek. The third is his conception of freedom within the confines of modern industrial technology. It underscores Aron’s insistence on reason, prudence, and responsibility in determining what true freedom is and what it means for individuals and for society.

This chapter analyzes the success of democratic capitalism driven by productive entrepreneurship. It explains the context of Charles Erwin Wilson's quote that implies “What's good for General Motors (GM) is good for America”. The quote exemplifies the old perception of the Industrial Age that held back the United States and other free-market democracies in making the leap into the 21st century. It is an expression of corporate arrogance that confuses entrepreneurship and hinders innovation.

The process of scientific discovery is something like a walk near Freswick Castle. I assume you’ve never been there. (Neither have I, but a friend has.) Freswick Castle stands at the end of Scotland’s northeast end, at the mouth of the Burn of Freswick in the district of Caithness. As of this writing, it is unlisted in Google Maps, and I had to manually scan the coast to find it. Outside the castle is a simple, unlabeled structure that doubles as a biochemical parable. The castle itself is narrow and three stories tall, with orange shingles and gray stone, set on an arc of narrow beach between hills to the north and cliffs to the south. The building is approximately the cruciform shape of a shrunken cathedral, with the rightward wing moved to the top of the structure so it resembles a lowercase f. If you wander the grounds near Freswick Castle, you will discover a stone wall in the wind-blown waves of yellow- green grass, worn but still standing firm like Hadrian’s Wall. From above, it is a period preceding the castle’s f. Let’s approach this as a scientist, with measurement. From the castle side, this structure resembles the circular stump of a roofless tower, eight feet tall and twice that wide. The stones are ancient sand, compacted and weathered, stained different shades of red from iron deposited millions of years ago, but the mortar is new. But inspection is not enough—we should go in. Walk around to the other side, and an opening appears, as shown in Figure 2.1. The structure is not a closed circle, but it is a spiral wall open to the sea, and to you. Inside, a small stone bench invites you to sit. A window slit next to the bench is an eye to the outside. Surrounded by a jigsaw of rocks, you can hear the echo of waves all around and watch the blue-gray sky above. If the spiral’s opening is a mouth, then you are Jonah in the whale. You are both inside and outside at once.