The Useful Knowledge of William Hutton: Culture and Industry in Eighteenth-Century Birmingham

The Useful Knowledge of William Hutton shows the rapid rise of a self-taught workman and the growing prominence of the city of Birmingham during the two major events of the eighteenth-century—the Industrial Revolution and the Enlightenment. Hutton achieved wealth, land, status, and literary fame, but later became a victim of violent riots. The book boldly claims that an understanding of the Industrial Revolution requires engagement with the figure of the "rough diamond", a person of worth a...