In the century after the end of the Civil War, life in the United States changed beyond recognition. There was a revolution—an economic, rather than a political one— which freed people from an unremitting daily grind of manual labour and household drudgery and a life of darkness, isolation and early death. By the 1970s, many manual, outdoor jobs had been replaced by work in air-conditioned environments, housework was increasingly performed by machines, darkness was replaced by electric light, and isolation was replaced not only by travel, but also by colour television, which brought the world into the living room. Most importantly, a newborn infant could expect to live not to the age of 45, but to 72. This economic revolution was unique—and unrepeatable, because so many of its achievements could happen only once.
Silicon Valley, where many believe that “software is eating the world.” But have we, as Robert Gordon argues, already had the best of the revolution?
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Economic growth is not a steady process that occurs at a regular pace. Instead, progress is much more rapid at certain times. There was virtually no economic growth for millennia until 1770, only slow growth in the transitional century before 1870, remar kably rapid growth in the century ending in 1970, and slower growth since then. My thesis is that some inventions are more important than others, and America’s growth in the century after the Civil War was made possible by a clustering, in the late 19th century, of what I call the “Great Inventions.”