Cambridge University Press Before the Luddites: Custom, Community and Machinery in the English Woollen Industry, 1776–1809

Before the Luddites is a study of the early Industrial Revolution in the English woollen cloth-making industry in the West of England and Yorkshire which concentrates upon the social background of and response to change. It is particularly concerned to explain the reasons for and the effect of Luddism. This book argues that resistance to machinery had a long history before the Luddite disturbances of 1811–12 and that this response to change sprang from a community culture which was deep-rooted and hostile to the values of economic individualism embodied by the new economy and to laissez-faire.