nd did not reach chain reaction proportions until much later. Simplistic explanations such as the presence of favorable geographic factors or the presence of natural resources offer an insufficient explanation for how and why industrialization took hold. Certain pre-conditions dated back to the colonial period. Geography, for example, was a mixed blessing. No one could have foreseen, for example, at the time of the American Revolution that this strip of fairly sparsely settled territories on the edge of a great wilderness would begin to progress industrially a half century later at a pace which would rival and eventually outstrip developments in powerful European nations like Britain and France.
The colonists from England inherited certain "concepts fundamental to business" such as respect for property rights, a f
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