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articlesofnote · 2 months

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"The Social Construction of Reality," Berger and Luckmann - Section II, Ch. 1 "Institutionalization", part B "Origins of Institutionalization" - paragraph-by-paragraph summary

I. Repeated actions become habitual/patterned, thus reproducible with less effort; note that this isn't a specifically social phenomenon.

II. Habitualization provides psychological relief of choice limitation, and also frees energy for times when innovation/deliberation is required to respond to a situation.

III. Habitualization also means we don't need to define each response on the fly; prediction becomes possible, even precise.

IV. Habitualization precedes institutionalization, and can take place in isolation, but in practice it takes place in the context of an institution or institutions.

V. institutions are formed when there is a reciprocal/multilateral typification of particular types of actions by particular types of actors ("the president shall address the congress")

VI. Inherent in the institution are: historicity and control. Historicity, because institutional patterns aren't formed instantly ("institutions always have a history, of which they are products"); control, because institutional patterns are typified, therefore limited and limiting, even regardless of actual enforcement behaviors or patterns as such that are part of the institutional structure.

VII. Institutionalization is incipient in every social interaction continuing in time.

VIII. That is, even two individuals thrown together without a shared social context WILL start to typify each other's behaviors - the initiation of roles, patterns of action, historicity, etc.

IX. The participants in this process benefit from it in that they end up with more ability to predict the other's actions - less astonishment/fear, more familiarity.

X. Any repetition tends to some degree of habitualization; any observation tends to some degree of typification; but in an ongoing bilateral social situation, certain actions are more likely to be habituated/typified. Which ones?

XI. Generally, that which is relevant to both parties (hereafter, A and B). This obviously varies based on material conditions, however, usually communications come first, followed by labor/sexual/territorial relationships, etc. all of which will be inflected by the prior socialization of A and B.

XII. Then, if A and B have a child ("C"), C will experience the parental patterns as objective historical givens, NOT contingent constructs.

XIII. In other words, prior to C, A and B construct a world that is entirely transparent and accessible to them, fluid and mutable. After C, and to C, this world is objective and opaque - and this also affects A and B since they now need to keep things more consistent for C's sake.

XIV. This is the birth of the social world we are familiar with, i.e. an objective fact received from without - the child takes it all for granted, the signifier IS the signified, etc.

XV. This extends to the world of institutions that we live within - objective, external, incomprehensible except via experience.

XVI. Nevertheless, this is still a human-constructed reality - "Society is a human product. Society is an objective reality. Man is a social product." - in an ongoing dialectical interaction.

XVII. Institutional reality also requires legitimation - ways in which it can be explained and justified to those who do not have a direct memory of its creation. These legitimations are learned as part of socialization into a given institutional order.

XVIII. As institutions depart form the original social processes that formed them, there is a corresponding increase in the need for more explicit mechanisms of social control - folks must be "taught to behave" then "kept in line."

XIX. In practice, mutual interactions between people or groups lead to multiple tracks of institutionalization which don't necessarily share a functional or logical integration.

XX. Nevertheless, institutions (which persist)* do tend to some level of functional/logical coherence, implying some level of common relevance/shared meaning among participants. Note that role performances can (and must?) be functionally segregated, but MEANINGS tend to a consistency of some sort as people try to understand their experiences as occurring within some kind of framework. There may be a physiological cause for this drive **, but it isn't necessary to assume one to appreciate this habit as a real empirical phenomenon.

XXI. "It follows that great care is required in any statement… about the 'logic' of institutions." The 'logic' is not 'within' the institution, but rather is imposed by our reflections about that institution.

XXII. Language provides the fundamental well of logic which can be drown on to explain the institutional world, and all legitimations are expressed in language. This also connects with the social "knowledge" that the world one inhabits is a consistent and logical whole, since from that fact comes efforts to explain experience in terms of the preexisting internalized social knowledge.

XXIII. So, institutions are integrated, but this is "not a functional imperative of the social processes that produce them;" rather, it is a byproduct of individual need to see their actions as part of a subjectively meaningful whole.

XXIV. Given this, it follows that analyzing social phenomena/institutional order would primarily depend on analyzing the understanding of the social knowledge of the people composing these institutions, of which complex theoretical legitimations are a part but by no means the whole. In fact, "the primary knowledge about the institutional order is knowledge on the pretheoretical level," the sum total of "what everybody knows" about that order.

XXV. Since this knowledge is socially objectivated AS knowledge, deviations from it ("depravity", "insanity", "ignorance", etc.) occupy an inferior cognitive status; because this social knowledge is coextensive with "what is knowable," deviations are seen as deviations from reality itself. "Knowledge in this sense is at the heart of the fundamental dialectic of society… [it is] a 'realization' in the double sense… of apprehending the objectivated social reality, AND in the sense of … producing this reality."

XXVI. For example, in the course of division of labor, an area-specific body of knowledge is developed, crystallized in language, and transmitted to particular actors; the knowledge thus transmitted becomes an objectivation that serves to structure and channel further actions of its type.

XXVII. Then, this body of knowledge is available to the next generation as an objective truth which has the power to shape an individual into an instance of that actor, which definition only has meaning inside the social world that hosts this knowledge. With variation, this same process applies in ANY area of institutionalized conduct. ---- Notes and related thoughts

re. V - The word "institutionalization" was used in the book where I used "formed"; "institutionalization" is overloaded to also mean "molding a human as an institutional actor" IMO (ref Brooksy from Shawshank Redemption)

re. XII - Unlearning the "objectivity" of parental dictates is probably a universal developmental phase? Or not - but maybe recognizing it is?

re. XVII - I can imagine an institution so totalizing that no legitimation is required - "force of nature" - conflict/discrepancies generate questions that must be answered, but if no discrepancies, no questions? Also implies that such institutions may already exist but we wouldn't know - because we don't question them or they are so universally taken for granted (eg. the concept of death itself, see The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant)

re. XX -

* I added the caveat about persistence - might be gratuitous, but seems relevant given my interest in institutional life cycles i.e. they CAN die or degrade or change, so how? Dis-integration of belief seems related, but is it symptom or cause? Or both?

** I think energy minimization IS this physiological (or even pre-physiological/physical) cause(? need? drive?)

re. XXI - Found this paragraph extremely surprising statement at first, but then less so - interpreted as another instance of "The institution is in our minds" - but might be wrong about this!

re. XXII - Therapists as social experts/sources of missing social knowledge? Secular confessors, paid in secular coin - a more general role in human cultures, the social expert - someone to whom you can ask "who am I, where do I fit?" and expect a meaningful answer

re. XXIII - So what happens if folks no longer feel the need or have the ability to do this integration of experience into a "meaningful whole?" - If institutional strength is in the minds of its members, then institutional weakness would result from folks not feeling a need to integrate their experiences into the institutional patterns - "all is vanity" - "integration is pointless" (cynicism?) as a concept is a degenerate simplicity, saving much effort - folks don't have to think hard about things or meaningfully engage with the world they inhabit, because all effort is proactively deemed a waste of time - and in a complex technical society such as ours, which is relatively productive and protective of its members, a given individual member doesn't NEED to engage with many of its structures in order to survive (vs. eg the medieval peasant of my imagining) - leads to a dislocation/disconnection/differentiation between 'social integrators' eg. folks who commit to institutional logics and embody them, pulling together and strengthening them, vs. 'social neutrinos' - folks existing without integrating or participating much ("consumers", maybe!) - hypothesis: industrial productivity gains not put into "shorter workdays" (i.e. fewer hours assigned to materially-productive labor) but rather in giving less of a shit about the world we find ourselves in; anomie/ennui - drivers(?) - existentialism/scientific revolutions driving human "place in universe" farther and farther out of center (Kuhn, Hobsbawm) - nb existential philosophy seems to develop roughly parallel to industrial revolution, initially dislocated (kierkegaard?) provide language for those who follow - american "rugged individualism" - contra "network", individual DOES matter, but lives in a matrix (hah) of institutions that he believes he cannot influence - which makes it so - institutional immune systems - change-from-within resistance (Le Chatelier's Principle?) - institutions also try to change their environment to be more hospitable (Legibility, per Scott)

re. XXV - See also XVI for the cycle being described in more words here

#the social construction of reality #sociology #kuhn #hobsbawm

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redstarnotebooks · 7 months

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Industry and Empire, Chapter 2 - The Origin of the Industrial Revolution

I like the way Hobsbawm sets up his problems here, that the British industrial revolution wasn't obviously going to happen (like there isn't a reason to assume private interest will lead to perpetual technological development), and that as the first such revolution it couldn't be explained using external factors (like capital import or technology transfer). It's pleasingly Maoist, insofar as the contradictions leading to the revolution are principally internal, rather than external. And why Britain, when other European maritime powers were also increasingly enmeshed in a semi-global economy of advanced and dependent economies?

He rejects on various grounds explanations based on geography, climate, population, contingency and pure politics. The basics explanation is the existence of accumulated capital, a national market, and three factors.

"Exports, backed by the systematic and aggressive help of the government, provided the spark, and -- with cotton textiles -- the 'leading sector' of industry. They also provided major improvements in sea transport. The home market provided the broad base for a generalized industrial economy and (through the process of urbanization) the incentive for major improvements in inland transport, a powerful base for the coal industry, and for certain important technological innovations. Government provided systematic support for merchant and manufacturer, and some by no means negligible incentives for technological innovation and the development of capital goods industries."

What I really like here is the way Hobsbawm highlights that the first factor was itself dependent on the division of the world, even at the time, between the rise of a mass market for overseas goods, and the creation of economic systems to produce these goods (plantations and colonies). Furthermore, at various points he highlights that Britain's military played a big role in securing these markets and systems.

"Our industrial economy grew out of our commerce, and especially our commerce with the underdeveloped world. And throughout the nineteenth century it was to to retain this peculiar pattern: commerce and shipping maintained our balance of payments, and the exchange of overseas primary products for British manufactures was to be the foundation of our international economy."

And this keeps going on! Later he talks about how this pattern gets ossified, and it fucks over Britain as newer industrial powers arise.

I think this book really benefits from having read/listened to some of the work by Utsa Patnaik on British colonial extraction in India, since it deals heavily with this issue of balance of payments.

This is a long-read version of her argument.

This is a good interview, with her specific argument coming in answer to the question: "Lenin argues that one of the constituents of imperialism is capital export. But some of your work and others such as Amiya Kumar Bagchi discuss how capital export was actually fundamentally different when it was exported to settler colonies versus capital exported to other locations."

#industry and empire #hobsbawm #nonfiction #books

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tomatdividedby0 · 1 year

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Notes on Hobsbawm and Zizek

(This was taken from a Mastodon thread in May 2023.)

In some ways, I think Hobsbawm's Age of Extremes could be read as a "critique of ideology" on the historical level.

The common thread through all the chapters is the shared failure of 20th century ideological visions, whether that be in politics, arts, sciences, religious, socialist, liberal, etc, and their self-parodying and death, with only racketeer capitalism remaining in the end.

It's very interesting to contrast Hobsbawm, who did this retrospectively (where the book leads up to the present him) versus Zizek, who has to do it contemporarily (an intellectual in the midst of what he is criticizing).

Hobsbawm is secure as he need not turn the critique on himself, whereas Zizek is entirely unmoored, revolving between cynicism and joiner-ism, with no real sense of what to do.

It's here I think one can see the limits of "critique of ideology" as Zizek presents it. Once conducted from the standpoint of the subject within society as opposed to outside, it shows itself to have a disorienting impact.

#hobsbawm #zizek #ideology #eric hobsbawm #shortpost #history #20th century #marxism #communism #socialism

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sieclesetcieux · 2 years

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Book Recommendations on the French Revolution (the "short" list version)

(For some reason, the original anonymous ask and answer I thought I had saved in my drafts has disappeared? Did I accidentally delete it? Who knows with Tumblr. Anyway, good thing I screenshotted it, I guess.)

Since I am STILL working on my extremely long post series going in depth into recommendations, I guess I should really just answer this ask and give a plain and simple list, as it was requested -_- (Don't worry, the extremely long post series is still going to happen.)

First of all, let’s just say, again (and it really must be insisted on), that most Anglophone historiography is… not very good. There are exceptions, but not many. At least, not enough to satisfy me. Fortunately, some good French books have been translated to English – so that’s great news!

So here are my main recommendations:

Sophie Wahnich’s La liberté ou la mort. Essai sur la Terreur et le terrorisme (2003) which was translated to In Defence of the Terror: Liberty Or Death in the French Revolution with a foreword by Slavoj Zizek in 2012.

This essay basically changed my life, and led me to take the path I have walked since as a historian. Zizek’s foreword is very good in summarizing the ideological oppositions to the French Revolution (until he rambles the way he usually does).

It opens with a quote from Résistant poet René Char which perfectly sets the tone:

“I want never to forget how I was forced to become – for how long? – a monster of justice and intolerance, a narrow-minded simplifier, an arctic character uninterested in anyone who was not in league with him to kill the dogs of hell.”

Keep in mind that when I first read it, in 2003, the very notion of anything like the Charlottesville rally happening was still in the realm of pure fantasy.

Marie-Hélène Huet’s Mourning Glory: The Will of the French Revolution (1997). One of the rare books in my list that was originally written in English (!). I think a lot of it might be available to read via Google Books, but it’s worth buying.

This book is hard to categorize: it talks of historiography and ideology, and it’s overall a fascinating book.

It feels a lot like Sophie Wahnich’s first essay – it was also similarly influential on my research. It inspired a lot of my M.A. thesis. I’ve recently found my book version of it, and this book was annotated like I’ve rarely annotated a book. It was quite impressive.

Dominique Godineau’s Citoyennes Tricoteuses: Les femmes du peuple à Paris pendant la Révolution française (1988) which was translated to The Women of Paris and Their French Revolution (1998).

It’s the best book on women’s history during the French Revolution IMO. I really don’t have much more to say about it: it’s excellent. It talks of working class women, it talks of the conflicts between different women groups, it talks of what happened after Thermidor and the Prairial insurrections, and the women who were arrested. No book has compared to it yet.

Jean-Pierre Gross’s Fair Shares for All: Jacobin Egalitarianism in Practice (1997). You can download it for free via The Charnel House (link opens as pdf).

Another rare book that was originally written in English, and later translated to French, though the author is French! (I think some French authors have picked up that the real battlefield is in Anglophonia…) It’s very important to understand social rights, a founding legacy of the French Revolution.

François Gendron’s essential book on the Thermidorian Reaction: first published in Québec as La jeunesse dorée. Episodes de la Révolution française (1979) (The Gilded Youth. Episodes of the French Revolution). It was then published in France as La jeunesse sous Thermidor (The Youth During Thermidor). As I explained here, its publication history is quite controversial (though it seems no one noticed?). It was thankfully translated to English as The Gilded Youth of Thermidor (1993). However, the English translation follows Pierre Chaunu’s version – which didn’t alter the content per se, but removed the footnotes and has a terribly reactionary foreword – so be careful with that. If anything, that’s a very good example of all the problems in historiography and translations.

Much like Godineau’s book on women, no book can compare. In the case of women’s history during the French Revolution, it’s because most of it is abysmally terrible; in the case of the Thermidorian reaction, it’s because no one talks about it. And it’s not surprising once you start reading about it.

(You might notice that Gendron’s translated book, much like many others, are prohibitively expensive. I do own some of these so if you ever want to read any, send me a message and we’ll work it out!)

Antoine de Baecque’s The Body Politic. Corporeal Metaphor in Revolutionary France, 1770-1800 (1997), which is a translation of Le Corps de l’histoire : Métaphores et politique (1770-1800) (1993). (Here’s the table of contents.) It’s a peculiar book belonging to a peculiar field, and it can be a bit complicated/advanced in the same way most of Sophie Wahnich’s books are, but I still recommend them. See also: La gloire et l’effroi, Sept morts sous la Terreur (1997) and Les éclats du rire : la culture des rieurs aux 18e siècle (2000), but I don’t think either have been translated. Le Corps de l’histoire and La gloire et l’effroi also are nice complements to Marie-Hélène Huet’s book.

If you can read French, I really recommend the five essays reunited in Pour quoi faire la Révolution ? (2012), especially Guillaume Mazeau’s on the Terror (La Terreur, laboratoire de la modernité) – which I might try to eventually translate or at least summarize in English coz it’s really worth it.

The following books are extremely important to understand the historiographical feud and the controversies that surrounded the Bicentennial of the French Revolution in 1989 (and both have been translated to French so that’s cool too):

First, Steven L. Kaplan’s two volumes called Farewell, Revolution: Disputed Legacies (1995) and The Historians’ Feud (1996).

Then, Eric Hobsbawm’s Echoes of the Marseillaise: Two Centuries Look Back on the French Revolution (1990) which gives you the Marxist perspective on the debate. If you want to look for the non-Marxist perspective: look at literally any other book written on the French Revolution and its historiography (I’m not kidding). For example, you can read the introduction by Gwynne Lewis (1999 book edition; 2012 online edition) to Alfred Cobban’s The Social Interpretation of the French Revolution (1964), the founding “revisionist” book.

Again, if you can read French, I recommend Michel Vovelle’s Combats pour la Révolution française (1993) and 1789: L’héritage et la mémoire (2007). I have not read La bataille du Bicentenaire de la Révolution française (2017) but it might recycle parts of the previous two books, so I’d look that up first.

Marxist historiography is near inexistant in Anglophonia, because of reasons best explained in this short historiographical recap on Anglophone historiography and specifically Alfred Cobban (link opens as pdf), but there was Eric Hobsbawm, who wrote a series of very important books on “The Ages of…”:

The Age of Revolution: 1789-1848

The Age of Capital: 1848-1875

The Age of Empire: 1875-1914

The Age of Extremes: 1914-1991

Some of Albert Soboul’s works have been translated as well:

A Short History of the French Revolution, 1789-1799 (1977)

The Sans-Culottes: The Popular Movement and Revolutionary Government, 1793-1794 (1981)

Understanding the French Revolution (1988), which is a collection of various essays translated to English (here’s the table of contents)

While we’re on the subject of classics: I do need to re-read R. R. Palmer’s The Twelve Who Ruled (1941) to see if I still like it, but I believe it’s still positively received? I’ve never actually read C. L. R. James’ The Black Jacobins. Toussaint Louverture and the San Domingo Revolution (1963) but I’m going to rectify that this summer.

That’s a good way to segue into a final part.

Here is a list of books I technically have not read yet (I skimmed through them), but would still recommend because I trust the authors:

Michel Biard and Marisa Linton’s The French Revolution and Its Demons (2021) which was originally published in French as Terreur ! La Révolution française face à ses demons (2020). It looks like an excellent summary of all the controversies surrounding the Terror: Robespierre’s black legend, how the Terror was “invented”, the conflicts between different political factions and clubs, the Vendée, and stats on who actually died by the guillotine (no, there was no “noble purge”). (Here’s the table of contents.)

Peter McPhee wrote several good syntheses, the most recent being Liberty or Death: The French Revolution (2017). Others he wrote: Living the French Revolution, 1789-99 (2006) and A Social History of France, 1789-1914 (1992, reedited in 2004). Why 1914? The 19th century was defined by Hobsbawm (see above) as “the long 19th century” (by contrast with “the short 20th century”), or “the cultural and political 19th century”, which is regarded as lasting from the fall of Napoléon Bonaparte to the First World war.

Eric Hazan’s A People’s History of the French Revolution (2014) and A History of the Barricade (2015), which are translations (Une histoire de la Révolution française, 2012, and La barricade: Histoire d’un objet révolutionnaire, 2013). If you can read French, check out his essay published by La Fabrique: La dynamique de la révolte. Sur des insurrections passes et d’autres à venir (2015).

Just as a final note: this post is the equivalent of four half single-spaced pages in Times New Roman 12 pts. It also took two hours to write and format (and make the side-posts with table of contents) even though most of it is already written in several drafts – i.e. the long post series of in-depth recommendations, so that gives you an idea of why that other series of posts is taking so long to write.

I’m going to go lie down now. -_-

ETA: Corrected some typos and a link that didn't quite go to the right place.

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davidhudson · 11 months

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Eric Hobsbawm, June 9, 1917 – October 1, 2012.

#eric hobsbawm

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princessofmistake · 1 year

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[...] nell’era digitale, in cui c’è sempre più informazione, la memoria è urgente perché l’amnesia è nel cuore di questa rivoluzione.

#Eric Hobsbawm #Eric Hobsbawm citazioni #citazioni #citazione #amnesia #società #società moderna #società liquida #saggio

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howieabel · 2 years

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"The old moral vocabulary of rights and duties, mutual obligations, sin and virtue, sacrifice, conscience, rewards, and penalties, could no longer be translated into the new language of desired gratification. Once such practices and institutions were no longer accepted as part of a way of ordering society that linked people to each other and ensured social cooperation and reproduction, most of their capacity to structure human social life vanished. They were reduced to simply expressions of individuals' preferences, and claims that the law should recognize the supremacy of these preferences. Uncertainty and unpredictability impended. Compass needles no longer had a North, maps became useless." - Eric Hobsbawm

#Eric Hobsbawm

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avalonunezgisi · 1 year

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o sırada özgür abimi, mâverdi’yi ve nizâmülmülk’ü güzellerim…

#şaka şaka hobsbawm üstadımı da allah için şimdi severim #touraine’nin de ayeı yeri var

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myshkin-in-switzerland · 2 years

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"I do my best to live intensely, and with success. So I'm training myself to get as much as possible out of my limited personal experience, aesthetically and otherwise, and to enlarge my small experience through books."

-Eric Hobsbawm in his diary at 17

#eric hobsbawm #aesthetic #live intensely

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pericardio-relicario · 3 months

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Most of what I have written in this bopk, except obvious personal judgments of the author, readers will have to take on trust. There is no point in overloading a book such as this with a vast apparatus of references or other signs of erudition.

— Eric Hobsbawm, from AGE OF EXTREMES: The Short Twentieth Century 1914-1991, on The Age of Catastrophe,

#Eric Hobsbawm #AGE OF EXTREMES

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empirearchives · 10 months

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In all seriousness, the whole “you think Napoleon looks cool because he paid people to make him look cool” has always been a very silly argument. All leaders paid people to make them look cool. Literally all of them. This argument also doesn’t take into account that Napoleon has been the target of wayyyy more negative propaganda than any of the other rulers. The historian Eric Hobsbawm said that the rise of the “Napoleonic legend” really has nothing to do with any propaganda effort on the part of Napoleon. According to Hobsbawm, Napoleon’s popularity “can be adequately explained neither by Napoleonic victories nor by Napoleonic propaganda, nor even by Napoleon’s own undoubted genius.” Saying it was entirely due to propaganda is just a way to dismiss any serious attempt to understand public support for Napoleon in the late 18th and early 19th century.

Hobsbawm quote from: The Age of Revolution, 1789-1848

#btw Hobsbawm is a critic of Napoleon and even he says this #and just to clarify I’m not saying propaganda doesn’t matter at all #napoleon #napoleon bonaparte #Eric Hobsbawm #napoleonic #napoleonic era #19th century #french empire #first french empire #history #france #age of revolutions #French history #propaganda

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wachi-delectrico · 1 year

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I've spent too much of this week reading Hobbes and Locke. If I could bring them back to life only to kill them myself I would

#rambling #ESPECIALLY Hobbes. Fucking hate that bitch #But it's fine yesterday i got to read some more Hobsbawm and that lifted my mood :]#Love that dead old man #Picture of Doomguy in hell killing demons but it's me killing liberalism & social contract bitches

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redstarnotebooks · 7 months

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Industry and Empire, Chapter 1 - Britain in 1750

Introducing us to Britain in 1750, Hobsbawm gives contemporary tourists' contrasting descriptions of London as the biggest city in Christendom, versus the green and orderly countryside. Our tourist can't visit any comparable cities in England but Bristol, Liverpool and Glasgow are rapidly growing due to a burgeoning trade in slaves and colonial commodities.

Britain has 6000 mercantile ships with tonnage of half a million, nearly 6 times bigger than its nearest rival, France. This private merchant's fleet forms 1/10 of all fixed capital investment, with 100,000 seamen forming the largest group of non-agricultural workers. There is some machinery, basic lifts and steam engines, but was the country was better known for artisan manufacturing.

The overall impression is of a powerful, rich country, based on commerce and its navy, with a comparatively prosperous common people.

"Economic and technical progress, private enterprise, and what we would now call liberalism: all these were evident. Yet nobody expected the imminent transformation of the country by an industrial revolution -- not even travellers who visited Britain in the 1780s, when we know it had already started."

Importantly, Britain also had a national "monetary and market economy", with London providing a giant internal market for agricultural products and coal, little regional variation in prices, and a lack of famine outside of the Scottish Highlands and Ireland

There was little peasantry in the sense of small cultivators, villages had a cash economy with consumption of colonial goods like tea and tobacco, and land ownership was largely concentrated: "a few thousand landowners, leasing their land to some tens of thousands of tenant farmers, who in turn operated it with the labour of some hundreds of thousands of farm labourers..."

Manufacturing was largely rural, with villages starting to specialize in certain artisanal crafts. This meant that the big landowners had a direct interest in the mines and manufactures on their lands, and thus industry had a major influence on domestic politics in comparison to commerce, unlike the situation in other European countries

The British ruling class, due to the influence of the English Civil War, was much more interested in austere money-making compared to the more archaic and feudal aristocracy of the Continent, allowing them to adapt better when things did change.

A lot of what Hobsbawm is pointing to here -- the condition of town and country, the relative balance of industry and commerce, the concentration of land, and the essentially bourgeois nature of the aristocracy are all this that are about to rapidly change, or are relevant for understanding the politics of what is to come.

One thing I really like is Hobsbawm explaining the preconditions for the Industrial Revolution in fundamentally economic terms of land and production, and their attendance social relations, without too much appeal to national character or a kind of pure contingency. Those show up -- they aren't irrelevant -- but they play a mediating role rather than a basic one.

This is a short chapter, so I really need to improve my summarizing.

#industry and empire #hobsbawm #nonfiction #books

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