Description
Book SynopsisFocusing on Manchester, this book shows that canals were at the heart of the self-styled Cottonopolis. Not only did canals move the key commodities of Manchesterâs industrial revolution âcoal, corn, and cotton â but canal banks also provided the key sites for the factories that made Manchester the âshock cityâ of the early Victorian age. -- .
Trade ReviewThis book is a major achievement, and a welcome and important contribution to the published literature on Manchester and on the Industrial Revolution. It is well structured, packed with a wealth of factual detail but with a powerful theoretical base, and (no mean achievement for a work on economic history) fluent, jargon-free, clearly written and eminently readable.'
Maw's work [...] represents a very important and substantial study of the impact of canal transportation on the ‘first industrial city’. It not only answers many questions about the commercial operation of canals and their impact on urban form, but also suggests some new and important avenues for research.
-- .
Table of Contents1. Introduction
2. Manchester canals: Trade, commodities, and markets
3. Competition and complementarity: Canals, roads and rails in Manchester
4. Bringing goods to market: Carriers in the canal age
5. On the waterfront: Basins, warehouses and wharves in canal-age Manchester
6. The waterfront and the factory
7. Canals, transport, and the industrial revolution in Manchester
8. Conclusion
Sources and bibliography
Index
