Three hundred years after the first production of coke, the history of this important
breakthrough, an energy transition that, together with the invention of the steam engine,
opened way to the industrial revolution, is still thought provoking on subjects such as
the rate of change and the factors that are favoring or slowing down the rate of change,
the role of infrastructure and technology in the development of industry, the role of
protectionism or free-trade on technological changes and last, but not the least, the
development of science and technology as tools for the improvement of the processes and
products. From the first information of G. Jars and his metallurgical trips and the small
scale tests of the first pioneers of the Enlightment, to the development of large size
plants incorporating new technologies, this history is that of the important social switch
from a small scale peasant seasonal activity with many workshops, to the large scale
integrated industry concentrated in a few places and connected with the suppliers and the
market by the new transportation infrastructure (canals, railways) developed in
continental Europe throughout the XIXth century. Scientists (such as Ebelmen, Lecocq,
Boudouard, Berthellot) and technologists (such as the innovation brought by Belgian
furnaces) have played an important role in this mutation.