The Lands that Salt Forgot| Age of Invention, by Anton Howes
Here’s a riddle. There was a product in the seventeenth century that was universally considered a necessity as important as grain and fuel. Controlling the source of this product was one of the first priorities for many a military campaign, and sometimes even a motivation for starting a war. Improvements to the preparation and uses of this product would have increased population size and would have had a general and noticeable impact on people’s living standards. And this product underwe...| Age of Invention, by Anton Howes
One of my big goals for this year, as part of finally finishing my book on the causes of the Industrial Revolution, has been to get a handle on a bunch of industries of the period — ones that experienced dramatic changes especially in the period 1550-1650, but which are almost totally ignored, as well as industries where most people have a general sense of the highlights, but where actually there was a whole lot more development that’s been almost entirely neglected or forgotten.| Age of Invention, by Anton Howes
