There was a period in the 18th and 19th centuries when Britain was arguably the most entrepreneurial nation on earth. The Victorians rightly celebrated the brilliant inventors and businessmen who pioneered the Industrial Revolution, men whose ideas propelled these islands to the top of the world in prosperity. Watt and Boulton, Clegg and Murdoch, Marshall and Murray, Cooke and Wheatstone: icons all.
But the explanation for this transformation — perhaps the most significant in the history of our species — wasn’t just about these great figures. Joel Mokyr, an American economist who has done much to illuminate the cultural foundations of economic growth, argues that the credit deserves to be spread much more widely: to small businessmen, shopkeepers and practical thinkers whose ingenuity is often