Output details

International exhibitions, British economic decline and the technical education issue 1850 – 1900,

This monograph, critically examines the economic decline of Britain during the Nineteenth Century. The originality of the work is that this examination moves the analysis of this decline away from the standard arguments of the dearth of technical and scientist education. The monograph is based upon extensive and rigorous research of original sources especially those related to the series of International Exhibitions held between 1851 and 1900. This analysis, the first of its kind, revealed a cycle of exhibition, investigation and legislation associated the ‘technical education ‘issue. The research then adds to this vista of literature by revealing that a much more ‘complicated story’ exists than first thought and provides research which undermines the ‘doom laden’ prophecy commonly attributed in the literature as the causation of Britain’s economic decline. The book was reviewed by a leading academic in the History of Education who described it, ‘as rare and valuable study adding to the growing literature on international exhibitions, the nation state and modernity’