As Time Goes By

• An authoritative study of economic growth from the Industrial Revolution to the 'New Economy' of the present day
• Charts the history of five technological revolutions: water-powered mechanization, steam-powered mechanication, electrification, mass production, and computerization
• Analyses the impact of revolutionary technologies on business organization and the business cycle
• Includes foreword written by Richard Nelson

Readership: Academics and postgraduates in the fields of business technology, economics, and history (especially those interested in nineteenth and twentieth century economic history, the history of economic thought, and innovation).

Chris Freeman, Emeritus Professor, SPRU, University of Sussex, and Francisco Louçã, Professor of Economics, ISEG, Lisbon

Review(s) from previous edition

"This major contribution to economic history is the most impressive and convincing attempt I know to apply the concept of the 'long waves', a basic rhythm of historical development in the era of capitalism, to the entire stretch from eighteenth-century Lancashire to twenty-first-century Silicon Valley. It is also a call for economic history to escape from the handcuffs of narrow retrospective econometrics to the freedom of its vocation: understanding and explaining secular historical transformations. - Eric Hobsbawm FBA, American Academy of Arts & Sciences, Emeritus Professor of Social and Economic History, Birkbeck College; Author of The Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century 1914-1991

". . . a true story has to make sense, to be plausible and persuasive. Cleverness is less useful than sense and sensibility. The inability to see this, to avoid showing off, has been the death of more than one pyrotechnic schema. This book is testimony to knowledge and good sense. Such virtues are rare and that much more valuable." - David Landes, Professor of History and Economics, Harvard University, Emeritus; Author of The Wealth and Poverty of Nations

"This book is a thought-provoking work that is valuable for more than its detailed account of the technological revolutions that shape our economy today. By directing our attention to a perspective outside the current wave, it shapes our thinking about events inside the current wave." - Academy of Management Review, 27(2)

Part I: History and Economics
Introduction: The Fundamental Things Apply
1: Restless Clio: A Story of the Economic Historians' Assessment of History in Economics
2: Schumpeter's Plea for Reasoned History
3: Nikolai Kondratiev: A New Approach to History and Statistics
4: The Strange Attraction of Tides and Waves
Conclusions to Part I: A Theory of Reasoned History
Part II: Successive Industrial Revolutions
Introduction: Technical Change and Long Waves in Economic Development
5: The British Industrial Revolution: The Age of Cotton, Iron, and Water Power
6: The Second Kondratiev Wave: The Age of Iron Railways, Steam Power, and Mechanization
7: The Third Kondratiev Wave: The Age of Steel, Heavy Engineering, and Electrification
8: The Fourth Kondratiev Wave: The Great Depression and the Age of Oil, Automobiles, Motorization, and Mass Production
9: The Emergence of a New Techno-economic Paradigm: The Age of Information and Communication Technology (ICT)
Conclusions to Part II: Recurrent Phenomena of the Long Waves of Capitalist Development