Hall and Klitgaard challenge the notion that the industrial revolution was primarily a matter of engineering and invention. They point out that the fundamental change in producing industrial goods was made possible by the use of fossil fuels. If one studies the data, they argue, there is a clear correlation between the use of fossil fuels (first coal, then after 1900, petroleum) and increases in industrial output, wealth, and population.

Yet it wasn't until the 1840s that fossil fuels (specifically coal) went into use for transportation. Population growth, commercial growth, increases in agricultural output, and the radical reorganization of the workplace began in the so-called "early national period" (1800-1840) in the northern United States, well before the introduction of railroads.

Are Hall and Klitgaard wrong?

A. Yes, they are wrong. They are focused on the post-1900 petroleum "revolution," and are guilty of projecting backwards to the 18th century their conclusions about the 20th century.

B. No, they are correct. The great change in industrial output preceded the application of fossil fuels to transportation. Once coal-fired steam boilers were inroduced to railroads and to boats (including freighters, paddle-boats, and tugboats), the transformation was rapid, and the rate of growth of output was substantial and is well-documented.

C. They are partially correct, because they overlook the phenomenon of population growth, which really only occurred outside zones of fossil-fuel production (principally in central Europe, South America, and western China) after 1850.

D. They are incorrect. Fossil fuels have always been used by humans, from the earliest evidence of cave-dwellers, through the extensive mining practices of the Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Holy Roman Empire. Natural gas (a fossil fuel that Hall and Klitgaard ignore entirely) was a significant contributor to the economies of countries around the Persian Gulf long before the late-18th century change in the cotton industry in Great Britain. Their analysis is entirely Eurocentric, and thus ahistorical.

Give proper explanation