Ben Waber reviewed A Culture of Growth by Joel Mokyr
A Thought-Provoking but Data-Free Read
3 stars
This book has a provocative thesis: Britain's ascendance as the center of the industrial revolution was due in large part to its cultural milieu. Importantly, Mokyr argues that this is not merely due to Britain's internal cultural dynamics, but its position within global knowledge networks. Unfortunately, Mokyr's argument boils down to: "there were lots of people who we now view as famous and important thinkers and they knew each other, and there were more of these people in Britain." This is further marred by hilarious errors of logic (e.g. Mokyr claims Charles Darwin was hugely unique for science, but neglects to mention that the only reason he published "Origin of Species" was because Alfred Russel Wallace was about to independently publish the theory of evolution and Darwin didn't want to be scooped) and contradictory reasoning (e.g. cultural entrepreneurs are important because intentionally push certain ideas forward, but sometimes the ideas …
This book has a provocative thesis: Britain's ascendance as the center of the industrial revolution was due in large part to its cultural milieu. Importantly, Mokyr argues that this is not merely due to Britain's internal cultural dynamics, but its position within global knowledge networks. Unfortunately, Mokyr's argument boils down to: "there were lots of people who we now view as famous and important thinkers and they knew each other, and there were more of these people in Britain." This is further marred by hilarious errors of logic (e.g. Mokyr claims Charles Darwin was hugely unique for science, but neglects to mention that the only reason he published "Origin of Species" was because Alfred Russel Wallace was about to independently publish the theory of evolution and Darwin didn't want to be scooped) and contradictory reasoning (e.g. cultural entrepreneurs are important because intentionally push certain ideas forward, but sometimes the ideas that become most closely associated with them are unrelated to what they tried to push forward). I'm not saying this theory doesn't have some merit, but that this book does not advance the argument in a rigorous way. Mokyr still provides some interesting anecdotes around cultural transmission around the dawn industrial revolution, so if you're interested in the topic it's still worth a read