You’re reading Age of Invention, my newsletter on the causes of the British Industrial Revolution and the history of innovation. This edition went out to over 14,700 free subscribers. To support my work, you can upgrade your subscription here: England in the late eighteenth century was often complimented or disparaged as a “nation of shopkeepers” — a sign of its thriving industry and commerce, and the influence of those interests on its politics.
Christopher Hill famously argued the Civil War was the point the bourgeois came to power. Isn't that the clear watershed?