The bitter European state rivalry also lead to industrialization. The particular sequence of necessary things like a shortage of expensive labour, wet coal that needed constant pumping, an arms race with other European powers (Whitworth rifles, screw threads, standardization, his micrometer, boring breakthroughs. Uh, I mean boring as in hole boring) and then finally the Newcommen steam engine which was truly revolutionary but was also utter shit.

James Watt's improvement of the Newcommen engine sparked the steam era. Also with heavy machinery we got the Bessemer process for mass steel making that was good enough. Puddling furnaces or crucible steel were something you did if you needed better control.

All of that shit was to spite the French. And the Spanish. And the Germans. And the Italians probably, maybe even the Greeks? Who knows. It was these interstate rivalries that created a tech arms race and now we are where we are.