Maxine Berg
British economic historian at the University of Warwick, emerita. Long-running research program on the material culture, consumer dynamics, regional organization, and global-commercial context of the British Industrial Revolution. The Age of Manufactures, 1700–1820 (1985) is her foundational book-length account. With Pat Hudson, the 1992 Rehabilitating the Industrial Revolution is the canonical response to the Crafts-Harley gradualism, arguing that aggregate GDP measures miss the qualitative-structural transformations that define the IR. Berg has also written influentially on British consumer culture and on the Asian-goods trade that shaped 18th-century British manufacturing tastes (Luxury and Pleasure in Eighteenth-Century Britain, 2005).
Associated positions
Section titled “Associated positions”- Rehabilitating the Industrial Revolution — co-author of the canonical statement.
- Empire, slavery & unequal exchange — relevant via her work on Asian trade and British consumer-goods demand.
Key works
Section titled “Key works”- The Age of Manufactures, 1700–1820: Industry, Innovation and Work in Britain (1985; 2nd ed. 1994).
- With Pat Hudson: “Rehabilitating the Industrial Revolution” (Economic History Review, 1992).
- Luxury and Pleasure in Eighteenth-Century Britain (2005).
- Various edited volumes on women’s work, material culture, and the global economic history of the IR.