Networks of Improvement - by Jon Mee

About the Book

"In this book, Jon Mee proposes a new literary-cultural history of the Industrial Revolution in Britain from the late-eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries. Against the stubbornly persistent image of "dark satanic mills," in many ways so comforting to literary Romanticism, Jon Mee provides fresh, revisionary account of the Industrial Revolution as a story of unintended consequences. Reading a wide range of texts-economic, medical, and more conventionally "literary" ones-with a distinctive focus on their circulation through networks and institutions, Mee shows how a project of enlightened liberal reform, articulated in Britain's emerging manufacturing towns, led unexpectedly to coercive forms of machine productivity, a pattern that might be seen repeating in the digital technologies in our own time. Instead of treating the Industrial Revolution as Romanticism's "other," Mee shows how writing, practices, and institutions emanating from the industrial towns developed a new kind of knowledge economy, one where "literary" debates played a key role, especially through local literary and philosophical societies who were important transmission hubs for the circulation of knowledge. Mee provides a new perspective on the development of social relations across the period, challenging the idea that the Industrial Revolution as the result of some kind of prior, ideological intention. The book will interest literary scholars concerned with the relation of Romanticism to Britain's social and economic upheavals; social and economic historians studying the underpinnings of the Industrial Revolution; and cultural historians tracing the relation between social networks and political philosophy"--

Book Synopsis

A new literary-cultural history of the Industrial Revolution in Britain from the late eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries.

Working against the stubbornly persistent image of "dark satanic mills," in many ways so characteristic of literary Romanticism, Jon Mee provides a fresh, revisionary account of the Industrial Revolution as a story of unintended consequences. In Networks of Improvement, Mee reads a wide range of texts--economic, medical, and more conventionally "literary"--with a focus on their circulation through networks and institutions. Mee shows how a project of enlightened liberal reform articulated in Britain's emerging manufacturing towns led to unexpectedly coercive forms of machine productivity, a pattern that might be seen repeating in the digital technologies of our own time. Instead of treating the Industrial Revolution as Romanticism's "other," Mee shows how writing, practices, and institutions emanating from these industrial towns developed a new kind of knowledge economy, one where local literary and philosophical societies served as important transmission hubs for the circulation of knowledge.

Review Quotes

"Be prepared to be surprised by Networks of Improvement. The early industrial revolution is not a place that conjures up images of improvement, or liberalism, or advances in medical practice. . . . Jon Mee's immensely learned book complicates and revises our images."-- "Northern History"

"A capsule review cannot do justice to Networks of Improvement. . . . The book is immensely learned and theoretically sophisticated (Bruno Latour occupies a prominent place), and it is well grounded in both primary and secondary texts and supported by extensive original research in the archives. . . . Essential."-- "Choice"

"Mee offers a sophisticated account of reading as a social practice central to the circulation of knowledge, both grand and granular, responsive to large questions with local particularities. Networks of Improvement is comprehensive, clearly written, and carefully organized."-- "Jonathan Sachs, Concordia University"

"Richly archival and powerful in its conceptions, Mee's Networks of Improvement boldly goes where few literary historians have been before, into the heartlands of industrializing Britain for a magisterially orchestrated and methodologically groundbreaking study. Mee has given us a picture of British intellectual and social relationships that will stand unmatched for a long time to come."-- "Jon Klancher, Carnegie Mellon University"

About the Author

Jon Mee is professor in the Department of English and Related Literatures at the University of York, where he is also affiliated with the Center for Eighteenth-Century Studies. He is the author of five books, including Print, Publicity, and Popular Radicalism in the 1790s: The Laurel of Liberty and Conversable Worlds: Literature, Contention, and Community, 1762 to 1830.