Abstract
Bowen and Gleeson argue that the greatest challenges that threaten to overwhelm our problem-solving capacities today are rooted in the duel, upward growth spiral of population and per capita production. This growth spiral eluded all previous human cultures until techno-science set off the industrial revolution in Western Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In this chapter, Bowen and Gleeson argue that techno-science itself was made possible only by several centuries of evolutionary problem-solving following the Black Death, combined with the unique historical events of the Columbian Exchange. These events initiated the rise of a new form of industrial social relations, centuries before the rise of techno-science. Industrial social relations enabled the dual growth spiral that has led to the Anthropocene.
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Bowen, W.M., Gleeson, R.E. (2019). The Industrial Revolution and Its Effects. In: The Evolution of Human Settlements. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95034-1_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95034-1_9
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