Knowledge, Energy, and Industry in the Age of Revolution
University of Birmingham, Friday 24 November 2023. Hosted by the Reframing the Age of Revolutions network.
For Eric Hobsbawm, the Age of Revolution was driven by two epochal events—the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. Since he wrote, of course, both the “age of revolution” and the concept of an “industrial revolution” have been subject to serious scrutiny and major historiographical revision. Scholarship on each of Hobsbawm’s two strands has, moreover, largely proceeded along separate lines. This one-day workshop brings together historians of science, technology, business, slavery, and empire to re-examine the relationship between political, technical, and economic revolutions in the period 1750-1850. By reassessing the “industrial revolution” and its connections to political and social change, the workshop will contribute to reframing the “Age of Revolutions” itself, and to historians’ ongoing debates over the patterns and causes of social transformation.
Programme
Welcome and Introductions (10am-10.30am)
Session 1 (10.30am-12.30pm), “New Histories of Knowledge, Energy, and Industry”
with papers by Nicholas Radburn (Lancaster) and Christine Bruland (Oslo)/Keith Smith (Imperial)
Lunch (12.30pm-1.30pm)
Session 2 (1.30pm-3.30pm), “Slavery, Capitalism, and the Industrial Revolution, an appraisal”
with comments by Trevor Burnard (Hull), Chris Evans (South Wales), and the authors, Pat Hudson (Cardiff) and Maxine Berg (Warwick)
Break (3.30-4pm)
Session 3 (4pm-6pm), “Linking Industrial and Political Revolutions”
with papers by Eoin Carter (Cambridge) and Eoin Phillips (Ramon Llull)
Dinner (from 7pm)
Participation
Spaces are available for further participants in the workshop; we are especially keen to include graduate students and early career researchers, and particularly those without substantial institutional support. If you would like to participate, please contact the organiser Tom Cutterham (Birmingham) at t.cutterham@bham.ac.uk with a brief account of your research interests and career to date. Accommodation within Birmingham will be provided for participants, and the cost of travel within the UK or Europe will be reimbursed.