MBA RESEARCH METHODS FOR BUSINESS

MBA Research Methods for Business

MBA Research Methods for Business

The articles selected for the purpose of this paper are:

Jan De Vries ' The Industrial Revolution and the Industrious Revolution', The Journal of Economic History, Vol.54, No.2, Papers Presented at the Fifty-Third Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association. (1994), pp. 249-270.

R.M. Hartwell, 'Interpretations of the Industrial Revolution in England: A methodological Inquiry' The Journal of Economic History, vol.19, no.2 (1959), pp. 229-249.

Translation of Research Questions

Economic historian R.M. Hartwell wrote this journal article in 1959, it was published in the Journal of Economical History. R. M. Hartwell is one of the most popular historians to write about the Industrial Revolution. The decade in which this article is written shows the view of historians at the time, and this is reflected in Hartwell article. As the title of this article suggest Hartwell sets out to give the reader the interpretations of the Industrial Revolution from all angles. He does this successfully and chooses to use a large number of sources, such as other Historians or Social Commentators, both from the time and a later period. Although the use of so many names throughout the article makes it hard to keep up with and is somewhat off putting. Although this does gives a balance to the article and allows the readers to come to their own conclusions. The question being asked throughout this article as, did the Industrial Revolution really improve the standard of living?

Hartwell does suggest that the Industrial Revolution was a time of change, and it is this change that is open to peoples own interpretation, this view is supported by many historians who believe that; “ the Industrial Revolution, as we shall see, was not a uniform wave of change…it came in a great variety of places…” It is an easy to read article, and Hartwell separates it into three sections. In section one he firstly starts by acknowledging both sides of the ongoing historical debate between historians on the Industrial Revolution. He describes both sides of the debate between historians, and reflects that the debate is almost as old as the Industrial Revolution itself. Hartwell explains that Historians fall into two camps; this is either the Toynbee-Hammonds view that the Industrial Revolution did not improve the standard of living of the workingman, or the later Macaulay-Clapham view that the standard of living did rise, and the Industrial Revolution was not as bad for the working man as originally thought. In the Second section, Hartwell continues by discussing how different historians choose to look at the Industrial Revolution from different perspectives, and that their own beliefs and opinions can bias their interpretation that then can bias what is written. Harwell suggests that some of the disagreements between historians may arise from the fact that they may be trying to compare people from different classes or two different types of jobs, he believes the comparison must compare like for ...