How has modern industrial civilization changed the Earth and human life?
Economist Hong Ki-bin tells us many different stories about money, economy, and industry!

The Industrial Revolution, which began in 18th-century Britain, spread throughout Europe and North America in the 19th century, and then spread around the world in the 20th century, creating an industrial civilization across the globe.
We who live today cannot escape its influence either.
No, it is no exaggeration to say that we are on the path to even more heated expansion.
So how was this industrial civilization built, and how did it change our lives and the planet? While "Another Economic History 1" explored the economic history from prehistory to the modern era, examining the background to the formation of capitalism, "Another Economic History 2" explores the process by which industrial civilization was built, anchored by capitalism, which came to dominate humanity's social and economic lifestyles.
It meticulously examines the complex intertwining of the three threads of technology, social forces, and institutions, while tracing major events in global economic history, from the First Industrial Revolution to the transformation of the working class, the socialist movement, 19th-century capitalism, state capitalism, the gold standard, the development of central banking, the dual movement and imperialism, the transformation of capital and financial markets, the Second Industrial Revolution, the Great Depression, fascism, human capital theory, and neoliberalism.

Perhaps the long story of the vast universe of industrial civilization unfolding over the past 300 years can be understood through the metaphor of these three ropes.
The story of technological change, the story of the formation and conflict of social forces, and the story of the establishment and change of institutions are each a string, and they are intricately intertwined and twisted together to create one thick, long rope.
Now, let's unfold the story.
--- p.13, from “Starting the Industrial Civilization”

His message is that now is the time to restructure society as a whole to fit the rationality of 'industry'.
The time has come to completely restructure society according to the principles of "science" suited to "industry," leaving aside outdated privileges, legal systems based on religion and metaphysics, and the behavior of kings and nobles blinded by power politics.
--- p.24, from “Saint-Simon, Discovering ‘Industry’”

Once you taste the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you cannot go back to the way it was before.
Now that cotton had spread throughout Europe, those who had become accustomed to cotton fabrics could no longer afford to live solely on woolen garments, and the traders could not afford to give up this golden opportunity.
They thought.
'If imports are banned, why don't we just make it ourselves?'
--- p.47, from “History Changed by Cotton”

Ultimately, the essence of the Industrial Revolution cannot be understood by looking only at the genius of those who led the technological innovation or the outwardly visible mechanical devices such as looms and steam engines.
We must look at the larger, more colossal human civilization that the machine symbolizes and represents.
Here are some truly great things that the Industrial Revolution created and changed.
--- p.63, from “Characteristics of Technological Change”

Looking back, it's absurd.
No one can deny that in order for an industrial society to function, machines must be operated, and therefore the working class is essential in the modern sense.
However, in England in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, when these people first appeared, they were not recognized as a social group.
The workers were completely ignored and worked like machines in the horrible factories for three or four months, then came out and lived a life of crime and prostitution, and eventually died young at the age of 30 or 35 from alcoholism.
What hope, what meaning could there be in a life like this?
--- p.82, from “Wealth increases, but people become beasts”

I would like to say this out of concern, but “Another Economic History” is a book that deals with the economy in history, not a book that talks about how economics or economic thought developed.
Besides, I don't intend to just recite boring economics numbers or repeat the same things from textbooks.
However, I would like to focus on the fact that industrial civilization is a thick rope, and that it is composed of technological, social, and institutional changes.
---- p.102, from “The Emergence of Economics 1 - Malthus and Scarcity”

Was it truly a pure donation, a donation made by Rockefeller, a man considered a leader among the robber barons, to advance truth and science, that he spent this much money? It's impossible to know, but it's likely.
Rockefeller is said to have later said, “That money was the best investment I ever made in my life.”

---- p.210, from “Universities as Power Institutions that Became Handmaids of Industry”