Industrious Revolutions

The Industrious Revolution was a period in early modern Europe lasting from approximately 1600 to 1800 in which household productivity and consumer demand increased despite the absence of major technological innovations that would mark the later Industrial Revolution. Proponents of the Industrious Revolution theory argue that the increase in working hours and individual consumption traditionally associated with the Industrial Revolution actually began several centuries earlier, and were largely a result of choice rather than coercion. The term was originally coined by the Japanese demographic historian Akira Hayami to describe Japan during the Tokugawa era. The theory of a pre–industrial Industrious Revolution is contested by some historians.