Economic crises and industrialisation in Southern Europe: the Valencian cloth-making town of Alcoi (1600 and 1800)

Abstract

Research on the development of industrial capitalism often overlooks the existence of successful industrialisation processes in southern Europe. The article analyses how the cloth-making industry of the town of Alcoi responded to the difficulties that it faced during two crises that occurred almost two hundred years apart. The first arose at the end of the sixteenth century and after the expulsion of the Moriscos in 1609. The second crisis began between 1809 and 1815, in the context of the Peninsula War. Both conjunctures caused serious difficulties to manufacturing activities that were resolved with the profound changes that would fundamentally affect the sphere of production. The study clarifies certain aspects with respect to the emergence of industrial capitalism in Alcoi in the early nineteenth century.