What is Reddit's opinion of The Industrial Revolution, 1760-1830 (OPUS)?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

Since you seem quite interested in the topic, I will not be able to write out all the compelling arguments and data on this forum. If, however, you are still curious, the book <em>The Industrial Revolution, 1760-1830</em> by T.S. Ashton outlines quite well the conditions of the Industrial Revolution.

As for the correlation between the GDP per capita and the standard of living, I do not mean this as an ad hominem attack, but if anyone truly believed that, then they are free to give away their income to pre-Industrial Revolution levels. More income means greater ability to buy better food, medicine, and education.

This statement is also curious: > Also in the creation of industrial capitalism people had their access to land removed as exited in the medieval ages and so weren't able to produce their own food.

The medieval ages had feudalism and serfdom.

I do not understand why colonialism was brought up, as I did not bring it up and do not defend it, but in fact, abhor it; nor was it mentioned in the original post. There has been great work done by economists Acemoglu and Robinson detailing the deleterious effects of colonialism to the colonizers and the colonies and the ensuing effects it has on current institutions (see <em>Why Nations Fail</em>). In addition to being morally wrong, slavery did not make America rich (see Gallman and Easterlin). You brought up American cotton and textiles, which presumably alludes to the belief that cotton produced through slavery was the foundation of the American economic, especially for the South. Again, the myth of King Cotton was proven by Olmstead and Rhode.

Now, it is true that technology has good and bad aspects, my previous statements do not deny that. It is, however, difficult to deny the benefits of the modern fertilizer, the MRI machine, vaccines and antibiotics, and the artificial heart--just to name a few.

the best book on the industrial revolution is probably by T. S. Ashton

https://www.amazon.com/Industrial-Revolution-1760-1830-OPUS/dp/0192892894