History of the World will include events from 18th century such as industrial revolution, The World Wars
In history, it is documented that the Industrial Revolution of the late 18th and early 19th centuries was radical because it changed the industrious capability of England, Europe and United States. These revolutionary changes were in seen in development of new machines, smoke-belching factories, increased productivity and an augmented standard of living.
The Industrial Revolution was an era during which principally agrarian, rural societies in Europe and America became industrialised and metropolitan. Earlier to the Industrial Revolution, manufacturing was done in homes. People used hand tools or basic machines.
Industrialization was observed as a period of shifting to powered, special-purpose machinery, factories and mass production. The iron and textile industries, along with the development of the steam engine, played vital roles in the Industrial Revolution, which also saw advanced systems of transportation, communication and banking.
Though industrialization brought advancement of technology and variety of manufactured goods and enhanced standard of living for particular group of people but it also caused in unemployment and living conditions for the poor and working classes.
With industrial revolution, English, European, and American society transformed to a deep level. Like the Improvement or the French Revolution, no one was left unaffected. Everyone was affected in one way or another peasant and noble, parent and child, artisan and captain of industry. The Industrial Revolution created modern Western society.
Harold Perkin has witnessed that “the Industrial Revolution was no mere sequence of changes in industrial techniques and production, but a social revolution with social causes as well as profound social effects” (The Origins of Modern English Society, 1780-1880 (1969).
Many intellectuals explained that The Industrial Revolution was the changeover to new manufacturing processes in the period from about 1760 to between 1820 and 1840.
This evolution included going from hand production methods to machines, new chemical manufacturing and iron production processes, improved efficiency of water power, the increasing use of steam power, and the development of machine tools.
It also comprised the change from wood and other bio-fuels to coal. Textiles were the foremost industry of the Industrial Revolution as it offers huge employment, value of output and capital invested. It was observed that the textile industry was also the first to use modern production methods (Landes 1969).
Historical evidences signified that the Industrial Revolution results a major defining moment in history; as every aspect of daily life was influenced in some way. Particularly, average income and population began to reveal unparalleled sustained growth.
Several economists stated that the major impact of the Industrial Revolution was enhancement of living standard for the general population. Although other group of scholars have said that it did not begin to profoundly improve until the late 19th and 20th centuries (Feinstein, 1998).
It has been documented in studies that the Industrial Revolution started in Great Britain, and spread to Western Europe and North America within a few decades (Landes 1969).
The exact start and end of the Industrial Revolution is still disputed among historians, as is the speed of economic and social changes (Berg, 1998). GDP per capita was generally stable before the Industrial Revolution and the advent of the modern capitalist economy, while the Industrial Revolution began a period of per-capita economic development in capitalist economies (Lucas, 2003).
Economic historians agreed that the beginning of the Industrial Revolution is significant event in the history of humankind since the domestication of animals, plants and fire.
The First Industrial Revolution progressed into the Second Industrial Revolution in the transition years between 1840 and 1870, when technological and economic development sustained with the increasing acceptance of steam transport (steam-powered railways, boats and ships), the large-scale manufacture of machine tools and the increasing use of machinery in steam-powered factories.
Many modern historian observed that the industrial revolution was basically a technological revolution, and progress in understanding it can be made by focussing on the sources of invention.
Causes:
It is established that some historians visualized the Revolution as a consequence of social and institutional changes brought by the end of feudalism in Britain after the English Civil War in the 17th century. As national border controls became more effective and it also prevent in transmission of various deadly disease. The percentage of children who lived past infancy rose significantly and it resulted in creating huge workforce. The Enclosure movement and the British Agricultural Revolution made food production more effective and less labour-intensive, forcing the excess population who could no longer find employment in agriculture into cottage industry.
The colonial expansion of the 17th century with the associated development of international trade, creation of financial markets and accumulation of capital are also mentioned as factors, as is the scientific revolution of the 17th century. Primary cause of industrial revolution is the population’s increase. Since the XVIII century, epidemics of plague were vanishing and the development of agriculture allowed the growth of food production and then there was a decline in catastrophic mortality (hunger, wars and epidemics). In addition, population’s increase augmented demand for goods and services. It promoted technical innovations that increased production and profits.
Several technological invention also led to the industrial revolution and major enabling technology was the invention and development of the steam engine. These inventions began in England in the textile sector, at the beginning they were very simple inventions, they were built of wood and made by artisans and people without scientific preparation, but after that, this technological development in the industry made possible the emergence of factory. It is a place where a high production is achieved through the division of labour because each worker takes charge of only in a portion of the process.
Another cause for the industrial revolution was the expansion of foreign trade. The foreign trade led to get inexpensive and plentiful raw materials and achieved broad market for industrial products.
So, people generated revenues through reducing of production costs and expanding of their market, take advantage of that opportunity was unquestionably the best option.
Other important ground for the industrial revolution is the need to develop effective means of transportation. The increase of population and agricultural production and also the development of trade had created big markets in which it was needed to bring the products from one place to another.
Therefore, it was imperative to develop and improve means of transport. Moreover, improving the means of transport was not an easy task because it was a slow and tortuous process.
However the growing need for efficient and effective means of transport, it led to the invention of railways and steamboats. All these aspects incontestably reinforced the development of the industrial revolution
The existence of a big domestic market should also be deliberated an important cause of the Industrial Revolution especially in Britain. In other nations, such as France, markets were divided up by local regions, which often imposed tolls and tariffs on goods traded amongst them.
Causes for industrial revolution happened in Europe:
Many historians wanted to explore the reason for eruption of the Industrial Revolution in the beginning of 18th century of Europe only and not rest of the world in the 18th century, particularly China, India, and the Middle East, or at other times like in Classical Antiquity or the middle Ages.
Several factors have been proposed, including ecology, government, and culture. Benjamin Elman debated that China was in a high level symmetry trap in which the non-industrial methods were well-organized enough to avert use of industrial methods with high costs of capital.
Kenneth Pomeranz, in the Great Divergence, claimed that Europe and China were remarkably similar in 1700, and that the crucial transformations which produced the Industrial Revolution in Europe were sources of coal near manufacturing centres, and raw materials such as food and wood from the New World, which permitted Europe to expand economically in a way that China could not rise.
Other historians such as David Landes and Max Weber gave different causes for industrial revolution in China and Europe. The religion and beliefs of Europe were mainly products of Judaeo-Christianity, and Greek thought.
On the contrary, Chinese society was founded on men like Confucius, Mencius, Han Feizi (Legalism), Lao Tzu (Taoism), and Buddha (Buddhism).
The major difference between these belief systems was that those from Europe focused on the individual, while Chinese philosophies focused on relationships between people.
The family unit was more important than the individual for the large majority of Chinese history, and this may have important role for the occurrence of the Industrial Revolution in China.
There was the additional difference as to whether people looked backwards to a supposedly magnificent past for answers to their questions or looked optimistically to the future.
Additionally, Western European peoples had experienced the Resurgence and Improvement; other parts of the world had not had a similar knowledgeable breakout, a condition that holds factual even into the 21st century.
With reference to India, the Marxist historian Rajani Palme Dutt had stated that “The capital to finance the Industrial Revolution in India instead went into financing the Industrial Revolution in England.”
In contrast to China, India was split up into many rival kingdoms, such as the Marathas, Sikhs and the Mughals.
Additionally, the economy was highly dependent on two sectors that include agriculture of subsistence and cotton, and technical innovation was non-existent.
Huge wealth were stored away in palace treasuries, and as such, were easily moved to Britain.
Causes for occurrence in Britain:
Historians stated that the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain was due to abundant natural or financial resources that Britain received from its many foreign colonies or that profits from the British slave trade between Africa and the Caribbean assisted fuel industrial investment.
It has been designated that bondage provided only 5% of the British national income during the years of the Industrial Revolution.
A major cause for the Industrial Revolution was the huge spurt of population growth in England. Alongside the fast growth in population, medical systems had also enhanced, thus there was a reduction in the number of epidemics that spread resulting in less of a death toll through lack of medical knowledge.
Otherwise, the greater liberalisation of trade from a large merchant base may have permitted Britain to produce and use emerging scientific and technological developments more efficiently as compared to countries with stronger kingdoms, particularly China and Russia.
Britain arose from the Napoleonic wars as the only European nation not ravaged by financial plunder and economic downfall, and possessing the only merchant fleet of any useful size.
Britain’s wide-ranging exporting cottage industries also safeguarded markets which were already available for many early forms of manufactured goods. The struggle resulted in most British warfare being conducted overseas, reducing the disturbing effects of territorial conquest that affected much of Europe.
Industrial revolution happened in Britain because of a dense population for its small geographical size. Enclosure of common land and the related Agricultural Revolution made a supply of this labour readily available.
There was also a local coincidence of natural resources in the North of England, the English Midlands, South Wales and the Scottish Lowlands.
Local supplies of coal, iron, lead, copper, tin, limestone and water power, resulted in excellent conditions for the development and development of industry.
Also, the damp, mild weather conditions of the North West of England provided perfect conditions for the spinning of cotton, providing a natural starting point for the birth of the textiles industry.
Another ground for industrial revolution in Britain was the stable political situation from around 1688, and British society’s greater receptivity to change was major factors to favour the Industrial Revolution.