E. A. Wrigley is Emeritus Professor of Economic History at the University of Cambridge and co-founder of the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of several books, including Nineteenth-Century Society (Cambridge, 1972), Continuity, Chance and Change (Cambridge, 1988), Industrial Growth and Population Change (Cambridge, 1961), Poverty, Progress, and Population (Cambridge, 2004), The Population History of England, 1541-1871 (1981), People, Cities and Wealth (1987) and The Early English Censuses (2011).

• Introduction; 1. Organic economies; 2. The classical economists; 3. Energy consumption; 4. Urban growth and agricultural productivity; 5. Changing occupational structure and consumer demand; 6. Demography and the economy; 7. Transport; 8. England in 1831; 9. The completion of the industrial revolution; 10. Review and reflection; Bibliography; Index.

'This volume has much to recommend it. It is an outstanding introduction to the emergence of growth in Britain. It also continues Wrigley's long career of unearthing, collecting, and analyzing important data at an extraordinarily detailed level.' C. Knick Harley, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History