Aggregate growth, 1870-1914: growing at the production frontier

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

For one of my economic history modules at university, one of the books listed as essential reading (contributed to by the lecturer, of course!) is 'The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Europe'. I was having a browse through volume 2, which deals with the period 1870-present and came across a chapter (named in the title) which i'm sure is spreading misinformation.

The second paragraph of the chapter begins as follows:

"Sometime during the 1860s, there was a change in intellectual mood. Social conflict, polarization, and the fight over income distribution were no longer the only possible outcomes of economic life. There were cases of countries - nearly all the developed world - that were able to provide increased incomes to the entire population. There was economic growth without any single individual (or social group) paying a penalty for it."

For GDP and per capita GDP data the chapter cites Carreras and Tafunell 2004a and 2008.

Now, I obviously don't have access to the figures, but this does seem a contentious claim, that in the 1860s and beyond the developed world became this beacon of economic growth 'fur alles volk', so to speak. Can anyone shed light on this assertion for me?

[Die Neue Zeit]

1870 is too early. Why isn't the Long Depression, which ended in the 1890s, covered?

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Well, it is talking about the period 1870-1914. I'm not really of huge knowledge of that period, hence starting this thread. As I said in the OP, i'm fairly sure that the assertion that there was growth that postively affected everyone during this period is blindly optimistic.