The article engages recent literature on microeconomics and intermediate goods in order to outline new models of growth in economic history and the possibility of productive exchanges between economists and historians. It focuses on the process of industrialization in England and France from the 1760s to the 1810s and argues for the diversity of kinds of capital, including the capital embodied in enslaved people, and for the importance of intermediate goods, especially materials, purchased services, and unconventional sources of energy. The article includes excerpts from primary sources.