Chapter 18

The transformation of Europe during the industrial revolution was because of the increase in technology because of new inventions and discoveries, which led to a huge increase of goods and services. New sources of energy such as coal-fired stream engines and then petroleum-fueled engines later were important because they helped to deliver goods and services to other parts of Europe. In Britain, where the industrial revolution began, the production of goods increased by about 50% between 1750 and 1900. Lying behind it was not simply one invention, but a culture of innovation, where people believed that things could be endlessly improved. Until 1750 or even 1800, Europeans did not have an advantage over other countries such as China, India, or the Islamic world.  The most important invention was the steam engine because it produced an almost unlimited ability to run many machines, as well as trains and ships.

There was always a lot of controversy about why the industrial revolution first occurred in Great Britain. Many people thought that Britain was superior to other people and countries, but that is not true because other parts of the world further back than 1750 had produced many superior things such as between 750 and 1100 C.E. the Islamic world made major advances in shipbuilding, and they used the power of water to generate power for papermaking and textile production.

For a long time India had been the world center of cotton textile production. They also discovered how to turn sugarcane juice into crystallized sugar. But China had been the world leader in industrialization since approximately 1200. However, many of the world’s previous discoveries had slowed down considerably by 1750, when the rate of British technology increased.

            What was different about Britain that led them to lead the industrial revolution was that Britain had better ways to increase agriculture by using crop rotation, lighter plows, and better seed production, which increased production and kept food prices low. This led to less labor for farmers, who were free to go into the cities to work in manufacturing businesses.

            For example, the British textile industry, which used 52 million pounds of cotton in 1800, increased its use of cotton to 588 million pounds in 1850. Britain’s output of coal increased from 5.23 million tons in 1750 to 68.4 million tons a century later. Most of the increased technology occurred in mining, manufacturing and services. In Britain, agriculture generated only 8 percent of national income and in 1914 it employed fewer then 8 percent of working Britons.

This industrialization caused a huge economic change and also transformed social life. The middle class people were the ones who benefitted the most from industrialization. They became doctors, lawyers, engineers, scientists, and other professionals that were required in the new society. But more than 70 percent of the people were not aristocrats or members of the middle classes. They were manual workers in the mines, ports, factories, construction sites, workshops and farms of Britain. Although their living situations were considerably different, the laboring classes were the people who suffered most and benefited least from the changes in society caused by the industrial revolution.

Karl Marx was a German who had spent much of his life in England. He saw that the revolution caused terrible living conditions for many people. He wrote the Communist Manifesto, a book about his belief that capitalism was against the human good and that socialism was the way for people to live equally instead of being divided into rich or poor. Working class frustration and anger gave rise to trade unions and socialist movements, starting new social conflicts in industrial societies.