The Bank of England’s Andy Haldane recently changed his view on the history of economic growth, as new research began to tell a different story of the years preceding the industrial revolution.

In recent remarks, the BoE chief economist said it was misleading to think of the growth boom in the 18th century emerging from ideas that “began sprouting like morning mushrooms”. After all, it is easy to point to technological innovations stretching back beyond the Roman era. Yet most estimates put