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Ever since the publication of the Encyclopédie, in the decades after mid-eighteenth century, there has been an on-going debate about the implications of the metaphor of enlightenment, mainly based on themes discussed in Diderot's and d'Alembert's work. Sadly, however, one major field has been left outside; scholars have dealt with two branches of the tree of knowledge, science and the liberal arts, but ignored the branch of mechanical arts. This article takes a starting-point in the reintroduction of political economy, with division of labour, and technology into an assessment of the Enlightenment. It has the ambition of discussing the process whereby progress became a central feature of eighteenth-century thinking, as well as relating this to a discussion about travelling to other places. It deals with Swedish travellers going to Britain, and central Europe, to view differently organised trades with elaborate division of labour, more skilled artisans, fittedinto a commercial economy.

Cet article envisage les ménages au travail. Le ménage comme unité de production est traité dans le cadre d'un modele théorique à partir de l'exemple des familles de fondeurs du Gästrikland (Suède), observées au cours de la première moitié du XIXe siècle. L'objectif de ce travail est de comprendre comment la production du fer en barres par des artisans spécialisés au sein d'ateliers centralisés s'est éloignée graduellement de la sphère familiale. Le travail salarié masculin est tout d'abord étudié en détail avant que ne soit abordée la dynamique des rapports complexes entre le travail des fondeurs, celui des femmes au sein du ménage et aussi en dehors et la taille et la structure de ménage dans cette communauté.

Sweden was a major exporter of iron during the early-modern period, but there was also an important domestic steelmaking. We analyse the Swedish iron and steel trade in a long perspective in a European context. Our approach departs from recent discussions on industrial and scientific developments, in which the spheres of "Hand" and "Mind" are brought together, and where artisanal skills and natural resources are highlighted. We emphasise how the migration of people, and movements of materials and knowledge, influenced a process of gradual change. A key feature was the ongoing interactions between working people and educated savants. Our conclusion points to the perseverance of artisanal skills well into the nineteenth century, but also towards new links between work, technology, and markets.

Preliminary Materials /C. Evans and G. Rydén -- Chapter One. The Warehouse Of The World. Commerce And Production In The Early Modern Atlantic World /C. Evans and G. Rydén -- Chapter Two. The Topography Of The Early Modern Iron Trade, C. 1730 /C. Evans and G. Rydén -- Chapter Three. The International Iron Trade At A Crossroads: Swedish And British Debates, 1730–1760 /C. Evans and G. Rydén -- Chapter Four. An Industrial Revolution In Iron—Technology, Organisation And Markets, 1760–1870 /C. Evans and G. Rydén -- Conclusion /C. Evans and G. Rydén -- Dramatis Personae /C. Evans and G. Rydén -- Glossary /C. Evans and G. Rydén -- Bibliography /C. Evans and G. Rydén -- Index /C. Evans and G. Rydén.

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- List of Figures and Tables -- List of Contributors -- Preface -- 1 The Industrial Revolution in Iron: An Introduction -- 2 The Industrial Revolution in Iron in the British Isles -- 3 Foreign Trade ‒ Transfer ‒ Adaptation: British Iron Making Technology on the Continent (Belgium and France) -- 4 The Diffusion of Coke Smelting and Puddling in Germany 1796-1860 -- 5 The French Iron and Steel Industry during the Industrial Revolution -- 6 Good Ore but no Coal, or Coal but Bad Ore. Responses to the British Challenge in the Habsburg Monarchy -- 7 Responses to Coal Technology without Coal. Swedish Iron Making in the Nineteenth Century -- 8 Nineteenth-Century Russian and 'Western' Ferrous Metallurgy: Complementary or Competitive Technologies? -- 9 British Technology and Spanish Iron Making during the Nineteenth Century -- Bibliography -- Index

Before the revolution in coal technology that swept the British iron industry in the last years of the eighteenth century, native ironmasters were unable to meet the burgeoning demand for malleable bar iron. The shortfall was made good by imports of bar iron from the Baltic, first from Sweden, then from Russia. This article presents new empirical evidence on the role played by Baltic iron in the Georgian economy. It also considers the impact of Swedish and Russian iron on domestic ironmasters as they sought organizational, as well as technological, ways to overcome the energy constraints facing the industry.

The title of this book has a double meaning: on the one hand, it deals with two very different societies both of which made iron in the early modern period. On the other hand, iron "made" these societies: the needs of iron production and the resistance to these demands from local peasant communities gave the societies a special kind of cohesion and rationality. This volume presents the findings of a joint team of Swedish and Russian scholars examining the social organization of work in early modern iron industry and their respective societies. The comparison was carried out against the backdrop of the international discussion on proto-industrialization, its prerequisites and consequences. There has, however, been a certain bias in much of that debate, the focus being mainly on Western Europe, particularly on Britain, and on textile trades. This book offers an important contribution to the debate in that it widens the perspective by discussing Northern and Eastern Europe and by studying the iron industry. More particularly it examines actual production processes, the organization of work, social conflict, questions of ownership and its evolution, as well as the diffusion and organization of technical knowledge. The comparative approach is consistently applied throughout, with each chapter closely integrating the results relating to the two selected geographical areas, thus showing ways of solving some of the problems arising from comparative history