The Next Comers: US, Germany, Japan and the Rest

In this module, Professor Sachs talks about the Anglo-American-led age of the industrial era. Britain became urban and a military force during the 19th century, and became the British Empire as we knew it, composed of its many colonial possessions. Britain was an industrial and financial powerhouse; it led the diffusion of the Industrial Revolution. After the United States closed the American frontier, it created its own empire and started imperial expansion into Spanish colonies. Innovation and diffusion are the basic ideas of the industrial age; Professor Sachs shows a map of the distance between European countries and London as compared to their industrialization, considering conditions that made the spread of industrialization easier. Sachs also discusses Japan’s catch-up industrialization under the Meiji Restoration, and ends with a recognition that, when regions succumbed to European imperialism, their catch-up growth was blocked.

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