In the three centuries after the reign of Henry VIII, the British Isles emerged from civil wars, invasion threats, and religious strife to become the world's technological leader. Why did innovation accelerate? I studied the people responsible, the innovators themselves, using a sample of 1,452 people in Britain who innovated between 1547 and 1851.
The paper charts the emergence and spread of an improving mentality, tracing its transmission from person to person and across the country. The mentality was not a technique, skill, or special understanding, but a frame of mind: innovators saw room for improvement where others saw none. The mentality could be received by anyone, and it could be applied to any field – anything, after all, could be better.
But what led to innovation’s acceleration was not just that the mentality spread: over the course of the eighteenth century innovators became increasingly committed to spreading the mentality further – they became innovation’s evangelists. By creating new institutions and adopting social norms conducive to openness and active sharing, innovators ensured the continued dissemination of innovation, giving rise to modern economic growth in Britain and abroad.