Chapter 17: Revolutions of Industrialization

A. Mahatma Gandhi criticized industrialization as economic exploitation
1. few people have agreed with him
2. every kind of society has embraced at least the idea of industrialization since it started in Great Britain in
xB. The Industrial Revolution was one of the most significant elements of Europe’s modern transformation.
1. initial industrialization period was 1750–1900
2. drew on the Scientific Revolution
3. utterly transformed European society
4. pushed Europe into a position of global dominance
5. was more fundamental than any breakthrough since the Agricultural Revolution
C. We don’t know where we are in the industrial era—at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end.

1. At the heart of the Industrial Revolution lay a great acceleration in the rate of technological innovation, leading to enormous increases in the output of goods and services.
   1. use of new energy sources (steam engines, petroleum engines)
   2. in Britain, output increased some fiftyfold in the period 1750–1900
   3. based on a “culture of innovation”
   4. before 1750/1800, the major Eurasian civilizations were about equal technologically 5. greatest breakthrough was the steam engine
   a. soon spread from the textile industry to many other types of production
   b. agriculture was transformed
   6. spread from Britain to Western Europe, then to the United States, Russia, and Japan
   
   A. There was a massive increase in output as industrialization took hold in Britain.
   

   1. rapid development of railroad systems
      
   2. much of the dramatic increase was in mining, manufacturing, and services
      
   3. agriculture became less important by comparison (in 1891, agriculture generated only 8 percent of British
      national income)
      
   4. vast transformation of daily life
      a. it was a traumatic process for many
      b. different people were affected in different ways