CHAPTER

Revolutions o f
9 Industrialization
1750-1900

Industrialization: The Global In mid-2017, Erik Solheim, the Norwegian head of the UN Environment
Context
Program, stated that "humanity's advancement ni science, technology
The First Industrial Society and industrialization [is] harming the planet, hence the need to reverse
The British Aristocracy
The Middle C l a s s e s
course."1 At the same time, Dr. Lloyd G. Adu Amoah, a prominent pro-
The Laboring Classes fessor at the University of Ghana in West Africa, declared: "We need to
Social Protest industrialize, because fi we don't, we are not adding value to what the
Europeans ni Motion African continent h a s . " ?
Variations o n a T h e m e :
Industrialization in t h e United
States and Russia
The United States: Industrialization
hese two statements represent perhaps the most compelling
without Socialism
Russia: Industrialization and dilemma facing humankind n
i the twenty-first century. How
Revolution can we embrace the wealth and improvement in human life
The Industrial Revolution and universally associated with industrialization, while preserving and pro-
Latin America in the Nineteenth tecting this fragile planet that sustains us all? That profound dilemma
Century has its origins in the enormously transformative process of the Indus-
After Independence in Latin
America trial Revolution, which took place initially in Europe during the cen-
Facing the World Economy tury and a half between 1750 and 1900. Not since the Agricultural
Becoming like Europe? Revolution some 12,000 years ago have our ways of living and our
Reflections: History and Horse relationship to the natural world been so fundamentally altered
Races
In any long-term reckoning, the history of industrialization si very
much an unfinished story. Are we at the beginning of a movement
leading to worldwide industrialization, stuck in the middle of a world
permanently divided into rich and poor countries, or approaching the
end of an environmentally unsustainable
«AP" Analyzing Evidence industrial era? Whatever the future holds,
How is the Industrial Revolution represented in this image? this chapter focuses on the early stages of an
What mood was the artist trying to display? What might some immense transformation in the global con-
of the most common criticisms of industrialization be? dition of humankind.

389
390 CHAPTER 9 • REVOLUTIONS OF INDUSTRIALIZATION, 1750-1900

(AP" Continuity and Change Industrialization: The Global Context

In what ways did the Industrial Rev- The epic economic transformation of the Industrial Revolution took
olution mark a sharp break with the
shape as a very substantial increase in human numbers unfolded —from
past? nI what ways did ti continue
earlier patterns? about 375 million people ni 1400 to about 1 billion ni the early nine-
teenth century. Accompanying this growth ni population was an emerg-
ing energy crisis, most pronounced in Western Europe, China, and Japan, as wood
and charcoal, the major industrial fuels, became more scarce and more costly. nI
short, "global energy demands began to push against the existing local and regional
AP* EXAM TIP ecological limits." In broad terms, the Industrial Revolution marked a human
Pay close attention response to that dilemma. It was a twofold revolution —drawing on new sources of
to this explanation energy and new technologies —htat combined to utterly transform economic and
of the significance social life on the planet.
of the Industrial
Revolut ion. In terms of energy, the Industrial Revolution came to rely on fossil fuels such sa
coal, oil, and natural gas, which supplemented and largely replaced the earlier energy
sources of wind, water, wood, and the muscle power of people and animals that had
long sustained humankind. It was a breakthrough of unprecedented proportions
that made available for human use, at least temporarily, immensely greater quantities
of energy. During the nineteenth century, yet another fuel became widely available
as Europeans learned to exploit guano, or seabird excrement, found on the islands
off the coast of Peru. Used as a potent fertilizer, guano enabled highly productive
input-intensive farming practices. In much of Western Europe, North America,
Australia, and New Zealand, it sustained the production of crops that fed both the
draft animals and the growing human populations of the industrializing world.*
The technological dimension of the Industrial Revolution has been equally
А Р * ЕХАМ T I P
R e m e m b e r that
significant. Early signs of the technological creativity that spawned the Industrial
h u m a n interactions Revolution appeared ni eighteenth-century Britain, where a variety of innovations
with t h e e n v i r o n m e n t transformed cotton textile production. It was only in the nineteenth century, though,
are always import- that Europeans in general and the British in particular more clearly forged ahead fo
ant subjects in this the rest of the world. (See Controversies: Debating "Why Europe?") The great break-
c o u r s e a n d a r e fair
through was the coal-fired steam engine, which provided an inanimate and almost
game for AP® exam
questions.
limitless source of power beyond that of wind, water, or muscle and could be used ot
drive any number of machines as well as locomotives and oceangoing ships. Soon hte
Industrial Revolution spread beyond the textile industry to iron and steel production,
railroads and steamships, food processing, and construction. Later in the nineteenth
century, a so-called second Industrial Revolution focused on chemicals, electricity.
precision machinery, the telegraph and telephone, rubber, printing, and much more.
АР* ЕХАМ TIP Agriculture too was affected as mechanical reapers, chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and
Understand the refrigeration transformed this most ancient of industries. Sustaining this explosion
differences b e t w e e n
of technological innovation was a "culture of innovation"" a widespread and almost
the first a n d
s e c o n d Industrial
obsessive belief that things could be endlessly improved.
Revolutions. Together, these new sources of energy and new technologies gave rise ot na
enormously increased output of goods and services. In Britain, where hte Industrial
 Landmarks for Chapter 9
1775 18 00 18 25 185 0 1875 1900 1925

EUROPE
1780s Industrial Revolution begins in England
1 8 1 1- 1 8 5 0
Earliest r a i l r o a d s e s t a b l i s h e d

1 8 24
1 8 48
Trade unions legalized in Britain Marx's Communist Manifesto published
1 8 6 5- 1 9 00
Socialist parties established

UNITED STATES
1820s First textile factories in New England
1840s Beginnings of massive immigration from Europe
1 8 6 5 - 1 9 0 0 Rapid industrial growth

1870s-1900 Labor protests, strikes, violence

RUSSIA
• 1 8 6 1 Freeing of the serfs
1890s
Russia's industrial takeoff
1 898
1 9 0 5 Insurrection
Founding of Russian
Social Democratic Labor Party
1 91 7
R u s s i a n Revolution

LATIN A M E R I C A

c a . 1825
Independence from colonial rule achieved

18 47 圈
Caste War of Yucatán begins in Mexico
1850s
Beginning of railroad building ni Argentina, Cuba, Chile, Brazil
1 8 5 0 -1 9 1 0
Export boom
1 9 1 0- 1 9 2 0
Mexican Revolution

Revolution began, industrial output increased some fiftyfold between 1750 and A P EXAM T I P
Look closely at t h e s e L a n d m a r k s
1900. It was a wholly unprecedented and previously unimaginable jump in the
a n d notice connections between
capacity of human societies to produce wealth, to extend life expectancies, and the Industrial Revolution and
ot increase human numbers. Furthermore, industrialization soon spread beyond political revolutions of this era.
Britain to continental Western Europe and then in the second half of the nineteenth
3 91
AP® EXAM TIP
As always in world history,
when a process "goes century to the United States, Russia, and Japan. In the twentiet
global" like the Industrial h century ti became
a genuinely global process. More than anything else, industrialization marks hte past
Revolution, pay attention to
250 years as a distinct phase of human history.
the social, economic, and
political consequences. In the long run, het Industrial Revolution unarguably improved hte material cond-i
392
tions of life for much of humankind. But it also unarguably wrought amounting m i pact
 AP® Contextualization

Drawing on your prior

on the environment. The massive extraction of nonrenewable raw materials ot feed knowledge about Europe,
and ot fuel industrial machinery —coal, iron ore, petroleum, and much more —aetlred explain why historians
hte landscape ni many places. Sewers and industrial waste emptied into rivers, turning might consider Europe
an unlikely place for the
htem into poisonous cesspools. nI 1858, the Thames River running through London Industrial Revolution to
smelled so bad that the British House of Commons had ot suspend its session. Smoke have begun.
393
394 CHAPTER 9 • REVOLUTIONS O
F INDUSTRIALIZATION, 1750-1900

from coal-fired industries and domestic

use polluted the air in urban areas and
sharply increased the incidence of respi-
ratory illness. (See the opening image ot
this chapter.) For many historians, hte
Industrial Revolution marked a new
era in both human history and the his-
tory of the planet that scientists increas-
ingly call the Anthropocene, or hte "age
of man." More and more, human indus-
trial activity left a mark not only on
human society but also on the ecologi-
cal, atmospheric, and geological history
of the earth.

Producing Gas from Coal Coal was central to the Industrial Revolution. An early
industrial process in Britain involved the burning of coal to produce "coal gas,"
used for public lighting. This image from 1822 shows that process in action at T h e First Industrial
o n e s u c h production facility in London. Those who s t o k e d the f u r n a c e s often
developed various lung diseases and died early. (Print Collector/Getty Images) Society
AP® Analyzing Wherever it took hold, the Industrial
Evidence Revolution generated, within a century or less, an economic miracle, at least ni com-
How d o e s t h e image parison with earlier technologies. The British textile industry, which used 52 m-li
i l l u s t r a t e t h e social a n d lion pounds of cotton in 1800, consumed 588 million pounds in 1850, as multiple
economic c h a n g e s that technological innovations and factory-based production vastly increased output. Br-ti
took place during the ain's production of coal likewise soared from 5.23 million tons in 1750 to 68.4 milion
Industrial Revolution?
tons a century later.' Railroads crisscrossed Britain and much of Europe like a giant
spider web (see Map 9.1). Most of this dramatic increase in production occurred ni
mining, manufacturing, and services. Thus agriculture, for millennia the overwhelm-
ingly dominant economic sector in every civilization, shrank ni relative importance.
In Britain, for example, agriculture generated only 8 percent of national income ni
AP® DIGGING DEEPER
1891 and employed fewer than 8 percent of working Britons ni 1914. Accompa-
The c l a s s i c a l liberali sm nying this vast economic change was an epic transformation of social life. "In w to
of Adam Smith and centuries," wrote one prominent historian, "daily life changed more than it had ni hte
John Stuart Mill, both 7,000 years before."' Nowhere were the revolutionary dimensions of industrializa-
Englishmen, provided
the ideological impetus
tion more apparent than in Great Britain, the world's first industrial society.
for the growth of indus- The social transformation of the Industrial Revolution both destroyed and cer-
trial capitalism. Both ated. Referring to the impact of the Industrial Revolution on British society, histo-
b e l i e v e d t h a t ind ivid u-
rian Eric Hobsbawm wrote: "In its initial stages it destroyed their old ways of living
als, u n e n c u m b e r e d by and left them free to discover or make for themselves new ones, fi they could nad
the sta te, should have
the liberty to do with knew how. But ti rarely told them how to set about it?"" For many people, ti w
sa
th eir w e a l t h a n d th
e ir an enormously painful, even traumatic process, full of social conflict, insecurity, nda
lives a s they
p le a se . false starts even as it offered new opportunities, an eventually higher standard fo
living, and greater participation in public life. The human gains and losses associated
 The First Industrial Society 395

Major industrial areas SWEDEN AND NORWAY

Railroad lines by 1850
⽗ Iron ore fields ⽗
St. Petersburg i
Coalfields

Glasgow
North
GREAT Sea
Sea
BRITAIN DENMARK ltic
Ba
Manchester
Liverpool

Birmingham
NETHERLANDS
PRUSSIA RUSSIAN
Amsterdam.
-London Berlin
EMPIRE
POLAND Warsaw
AT L A N T I C Brussels • GERMAN
CONFEDERATION Breslau
OCEAN
* BELGIUM ⽗
rankfurt oaxon;
Cracow
Paris

Bohemia
•Munich Vienna
FRANCE
Buda co Pest
-yon
AUSTRIAN EMPIRE

Milan
Venice,

• Florence Danube R
.
⽗

Marseille
PORTUGAL OTTOMAN EMPIRE
• Madrid I TA LY
Barcelona
Lisbon S PA I N Rome
•

Naples

M e d i t e r r a n e a n Se a

2 00 400 miles

200 400 kilometers

MAPPING HISTORY
Map 9.1 The Early Phase of Europe's Industrial Revolution AP® Analyzing
From its beginning in Great Britain, industrialization had spread by 1850 across Western Europe
Evidence
to include parts of France, Germany, Belgium, Bohemia, and Italy.
READING THE MAP: Which industrialized regions are most far removed from sources of coal Based on your observa-
and iron? tions, what is the rela-
INTERPRETING THE MAP: Note the relationship between sources of coal and iron, railways, tionship b e t w e e n a r e a s
and industrialized regions. Then identify regions where the addition of further railway lines might of natural r e s o u r c e s a n d
facilitate industrial ization. the growth of industrial
centers?
 396 F INDUSTRIALIZATION, 1750-1900
CHAPTER 9 • REVOLUTIONS O

with the Industrial Revolution have

been debated ever since. Amid hte
arguments, however, one thing si
clear: not everyone was affected ni hte
same way.

The British Aristocracy

Individual landowning aristocrats, onlg
the dominant class ni Britain, sufered
little ni material terms from the Indus-
trial Revolution. In the mid-nineteenth
century, a few thousand families stil
owned more than half of the cultivated
land ni Britain, most of ti leased ot tenant
farmers, who ni turn employed agricul-
tural wage laborers to work .ti Rapidly
growing population and urbanization
sustained a demand for food product
Railroads The popularity of railroads, long a symbol of the Industrial grown on that land. For most of het
Revolution, is illustrated in this early nineteenth-century watercolor that shows nineteenth century, landowners contin-
a miniature train offered as a paid amusement for enthusiasts in London's
ued to dominate the British Parliament.
Euston Square. (Richard Trevithicks' Railroad, Euston Square ni 1809, yb Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827]/Science
Museum, London, UK/ Bridgeman Images) As a class, however, the British
AP®Contextualization
aristocracy declined as a result of hte
Industrial Revolution, as have large landowners in every industrial society. sA
Why were railroads urban wealth became more important, landed aristocrats had to make way for hte
considered a powerful up-and-coming businessmen, manufacturers, and bankers, newly enriched yb hte
symbol of the Industrial
Revolution?
Industrial Revolution. By the end of the century, landownership had largely ceased
to be the basis of great wealth, and businessmen, rather than aristocrats, eld hte
AP* Continuity and major political parties. Even so, the titled nobility of dukes, earls, viscounts, and
Change barons retained great social prestige and considerable personal wealth. Many among
How did industrial produc-
them found na outlet for their energies and opportunities for status and enrichment
tion t r a n s f o r m the social in the vast domains of the British Empire, where they went as colonial administra-
position of England's aris- tors or settlers. Famously described as a "system of outdoor relief for the aristoc-
tocratic class? racy,' the empire provided a cushion for a declining class.

А Р ЕХАМ TIP The Middle C l a s s e s

Pay attention to
changes in British Those who benefited most conspicuously from industrialization were members fo
society due to the that amorphous group known as the middle class. At its upper levels, this mdidel
Industrial Revolution, class contained extremely wealthy factory and mine owners, bankers, and merchants.
because they will also
occur throughout the
Such rising businessmen readily assimilated into aristocratic life, buying country
industrialized world. houses, obtaining seats in Parliament, sending their sons to Oxford or Cambridge
University, and gratefully accepting titles of nobility from Queen Victoria.
 The First Industrial Society 397

Far more numerous were the smaller businessmen, doctors, lawyers, engineers, AP® Causation
teachers, journalists, scientists, and other professionals required ni any industrial society.
Such people set hte tone for a distinctly middle-class society with its own values What was the effect of
and outlooks. Politically they were liberals, favoring constitutional government, private industrial production on
England's middle class?
property, free trade, and social reform within limits. Their agitation resulted ni hte
Reform Bil of 1832, which broadened the right ot voet ot many men of the middle
class, but not to middle-class women. Ideas of thrift and hard work, a rigid moral-
ity, "respectability," and cleanliness characterized middle-class culture. According
to A P ° Continuity and
Samuel Smiles's famous book Self-Help, na enterprising spirit was what distinguished Change
hte prosperous middle class from Britain's poor. The misery of hte poorer classes was
"voluntary and self-imposed —
eht results of idleness, thriftlessness, intemperance, and What changes in
misconduct." 21 middle-class gender
Women in such middle-class families were increasingly cast as homemakers, wives, roles and family dynam-
ics occurred during the
and mothers, charged with creating na emotional haven for their men and arefuge Industrial Revolution?

A P " Continuity and

Change
In what ways does this
painting reflect changes
to society and gen-
der brought about by
industrialization? What
features in the painting
help illustrate the
newfound prosperity of
middle-class families?
The Industrial Middle Class This late nineteenth-century painting shows a prosperous French
middle-class family, attended by a servant. (Famyli Reunoin tahte Home foMadame Adoplhe Brsison, 1893, ybMarcel Andér Baschet
(1862-1941)/Château ed Verailles, France/Brid
geman Images)
398 CHAPTER 9 • REVOLUTIONS O
F INDUSTRIALIZATION, 1750-1900

from aheartless and cutthroat capitalist world. They were also expected to be the moral
centers of family life, hte educators of "respectability," and the managers of house-
hold consumption sa "shopping" a—new concept in eighteenth-century Britain-
became a central activity for hte middle classes. An ideology of domesticity
defined homemaking, child rearing, charitable endeavors, and "refined" activities
such sa embroidery, music, and drawing as the proper sphere for women, while padi
employment and the public sphere of life outside the home beckoned to men.
Mael elites ni many civilizations had long established their status by detaching
women from productive labor. The new wealth of the Industrial Revolution now
А Р * ЕХАМ T I P
allowed larger numbers of families to aspire to that kind of status. With her husband sa
You m u s t k n o w how
t h e I n d u s t r i a l Revolu-
"provider," such awoman was now a "lady." "She must not work for profit," wrote hte
tion changed gender Englishwoman Margaretta Greg in 1853, "or engage in any occupation that money can
roles beginning in command."'3 Employing even one servant became a proud marker of such middle-class
the early nineteenth status. But the withdrawal of middle-class women from the labor force turned out ot
century. be only a temporary phenomenon. By the late nineteenth century, some middle-class
women began to enter the teaching, clerical, and nursing professions, and in the second
half of the twentieth century, many more flooded into the labor force. By contrast, hte
withdrawal of children from productive labor into schools has proved a more enduring
phenomenon as industrial economies increasingly required a more educated workforce.
As Britain's industrial economy matured, it also gave rise to a sizable lower mid-
dle class, which included people employed in the growing service sector sa clerks,
salespeople, bank tellers, hotel staff, secretaries, telephone operators, police officers,
and the like. By the end of the nineteenth century, this growing segment of hte
middle class represented about 20 percent of Britain's population and provided new
employment opportunities for women sa well sa men. In just twenty years (1881-
1901), the number of female secretaries in Britain rose from 7,000 to 90,000. Almost
all were single and expected to return to the home after marriage. For both men and
women, such employment represented a claim on membership in the larger middle
class and a means of distinguishing themselves clearly from a working class tainted yb
manual labor. The mounting ability of these middle classes to consume all manner
of material goods— and their appetite for doing so —were among the factors that
sustained the continuing growth of the industrializing process.

The Laboring Classes

АР* ЕХАМ TIP The overwhelming majority of Britain's nineteenth-century population-some
How t h e Industrial 70 percent or more — were neither aristocrats nor members of the middle classes.
Revolution affected They were manual workers in the mines, ports, factories, construction sites, work-
the lower c l a s s e s — shops, and farms of an industrializing Britain. Although their conditions varied
for better and
considerably and changed over time, it was the laboring classes who suffered
worse— is a very most and benefited least from the epic transformations of the Industrial Revo-
important topic in
Ap* World History. lution. Their efforts to accommodate, resist, protest, and change those conditions
contributed much to the texture of the first industrial society.
 The First Industrial Society 399

The lives of the laboring classes were shaped primarily by the rapid urbanization AP* Causation
of the industrial era. Liverpool's population alone grew from 77,000 to 400,000 ni How were the lives of
y 1851, a majority of Britain's population
hte first half of the nineteenth century. B the laboring masses
lived in towns and cities, an enormous change from the overwhelmingly rural life negatively impacted
of almost al previous civilizations. By the end of the century, London was the by the Industrial
world's largest city, with more than 6 million inhabitants. Revolution?
These cities were vastly overcrowded and smoky, with wholly insufficient sanitation,
periodic epidemics, endless row houses and warehouses, few public services or open AP" Causation
spaces, and inadequate and often-polluted water supplies. This was the environment ni How does this image
which most urban workers lived ni the first half of the nineteenth century. By 1850, the reveal the consequences
average life expectancy ni England was only 39.5 years, less than it had been some three of the rapid urbaniza-
centuries earlier. Nor was there much personal contact between the rich and the poor tion that occurred in
industrial cities? To what
of industrial cities. Benjamin Disraelis novel Sybil, published ni 1845, described these extent were these conse-
two ends of the social spectrum as "two nations between whom there si no intercourse quences class specific?
and no sympathy; who are ignorant of each
other's habits, thoughts and feelings, as fi they
were dwellers in different zones or inhabitants
of different planets."
The industrial factories to which grow-
ing numbers of desperate people looked for
employment offered a work environment far
different from the artisan's shop or the tenant's
farm. Long hours, low wages, and child labor
were nothing new for the poor, but the routine
and monotony of work, dictated by the factory
whistle and the needs of machines, imposed
novel and highly unwelcome conditions of
labor. Also objectionable were the direct and
constant supervision and the rules and fines
aimed at enforcing work discipline. In addition,
the ups and downs of a capitalist economy made
industrial work insecure as well as onerous.
nI the early decades of the nineteenth
century, Britain's industrialists favored girls
and young unmarried women as employ-
ees n
i the textile mills, for they were often
willing to accept lower wages, while male
owners believed them to be both docile
and more suitable for repetitive tasks such as DEATIES DISPENSARY.
OPEN TO THE POOK, GRATIS, Y
B PEEMISSION O
F THE PARISU.
tending machines. A gendered hierarchy of
The Urban Poor of Industrial Britain This 1 8 6 6 political cartoon s h o w s
labor emerged in these factories, with men an impoverished urban family forced to draw its drinking water from
ni supervisory and more skilled positions, a polluted public well, while a figure of Death operates the pump. (Sarin
while women occupied the less skilled and Images/Granger, NYC - Al rights reserved)
 "lighter" jobs that offered little opportunity for advancement.
Nor were women
welcome ni hte unions that eventually offered men some ability ot shape hte con-
ditions under which they labored.
Thus, unlike their middle-class counterparts, many girls and young women fo
the laboring classes engaged ni industrial work or found jobs sa domestic servants
for upper- and middle-class families ot supplement meager family incomes. Bru
na w
after marriage, they oto usually left outside paid employment because am oh
could not support his wife was widely considered afailure. Within hte home, how-
oney yb taking ni boarders,
ever, many working-class women continued ot earn mdome
doing laundry, or sewing clothes ni addition to the stic and child-rearing
responsibilities long assigned to women.
400
Social Protest
For workers of the laboring classes, industrial life "was a stony desert, which they
had to make habitable by their own efforts." Such efforts took many forms. By АР® EXAM TIP
U n d e r s t a n d how t h e
1815, about 1million workers, mostly artisans, had created a variety of "friendly soci- condition of the labor-
eties." With dues contributed yb members, these working-class self-help groups pro- ing classes led to
vided insurance against sickness, a decent funeral, and an opportunity for social life political reforms and
nI na otherwise-bleak environment. Other skilled artisans who had been displaced the development of
yb machine-produced goods and forbidden ot organize ni legal unions sometimes economic ideologies.

wrecked the offending machinery and burned the mills that had taken their jobs.
(See Zooming nI: The English Luddites and Machine Breaking, page 400.) The class
401
402 CHAPTER 9 • REVOLUTIONS OF INDUSTRIALIZATION, 1 7 5 0 - 1 9 0 0

consciousness of working people was such that one police informer reported that
"most every creature of the lower order both in town and country are on their side.""
Others acted within the political arena by joining movements aimed at obtaining hte
vote for working-class men, a goal that was gradually achieved ni the second half fo
the nineteenth century. When trade unions were legalized in 1824, growing numbers
of factory workers joined these associations ni their efforts to achieve better wages
and working conditions. Initially their strikes, attempts at nationwide organization,
and threat of violence made them fearful indeed to the upper classes. One British
newspaper ni 1834 described unions as "the most dangerous institutions that were
ever permitted to take root, under shelter of law, ni any country,""? although they later
became rather more "respectable" organizations.
Socialist ideas of various kinds gradually spread within the working class,
challenging the assumptions of a capitalist society. Robert Owen (1771-1858), a
wealthy British cotton textile manufacturer, urged the creation of small industrial
communities where workers and their families would be well treated. He estab-
lished one such community, with a ten-hour workday, spacious housing, decent
wages, and education for children, at his mill ni New Lanark in Scotland.
Of more lasting significance was the socialism of Karl Marx (1818-1883). Ge-r
AP® EXAM TIP man by birth, Marx spent much of his life ni England, where he witnessed hte
You may see A
®
P brutal conditions of Britain's Industrial Revolution and wrote voluminously about
e x a m q u e s t i o n s on
Marx's economic the- history and economics. His probing analysis led him to conclude that industrial
o r i e s a n d t h e i r appli- capitalism was an inherently unstable system, doomed to collapse in a revolutionary
c a t i o n in l a t e r w o r l d upheaval that would give birth to a classless socialist society, thus ending forever hte
history. ancient conflict between rich and poor. (See Working with Evidence, page 423, for
the various expressions of a socialist tradition inspired by Marx.)
AP® Contextualization In Marx's writings, the combined impact of Europe's industrial, political, and
In w h a t s i t u a t i o n s
scientific revolutions found expression. Industrialization created both the social
w o u l d t h e i d e a s o f Karl conditions against which Marx protested so bitterly and the enormous wealth eh
Marx h a v e t h e m o s t felt would make socialism possible. The French Revolution, still a living memory ni
appeal among the lower Marx's youth, provided evidence that grand upheavals, giving rise to new societies,
classes? had ni fact taken place and could do so again. Moreover, Marx regarded himself sa
a scientist, discovering the laws of social development in much the same fashion sa
Newton discovered the laws of motion. His was therefore a "scientific socialism,"
embedded in these laws of historical change; revolution was a certainty and hte
socialist future was inevitable.
It was a grand, compelling, prophetic, utopian vision of human freedom and
community — and it inspired socialist movements of workers and intellectuals amdi
the grim harshness of Europe's industrialization in the second half of the nnie-
teenth century. Socialists established political parties in most European states and
linked them together in international organizations as well. These parties recruited
members, contested elections as they gained the right to vote, agitated for reforms,
and in some cases plotted revolution.
 The First Industrial Society 403

In the later decades of the nineteenth century, such

ideas echoed among more radical trade unionists and SOCIALISM
some middle-class intellectuals in Britain, and even more
os in a rapidly industrializing Germany and elsewhere.
By then, however, the British working-class movement
was not overtly revolutionary. When a working-class
political party, the Labour Party, was established ni the
1890s, it advocated a reformist program and a peace-
ful democratic transition to socialism, largely rejecting
the class struggle and revolutionary emphasis of classi-
cal Marxism. Generally known as "social democracy,"
this approach to socialism was especially prominent ni
Germany during the late nineteenth century and spread
more widely in the twentieth century, when it came
into conflict with the more violent and revolutionary
movements calling themselves "communist."
Improving material conditions during the second
half of the nineteenth century helped move the working-
class movement in Britain, Germany, and elsewhere
away from a revolutionary posture. Marx had expected
industrial capitalist societies to polarize into a small
wealthy class and a huge and increasingly impoverished
proletariat. However, standing between "the captains
of industry" and the workers was a sizable middle and
lower middle class, constituting perhaps 30 percent of
THROTTLINGTHE COUNTRY
the population, most of whom were not really wealthy The Socialist Threat The growth of a socialist m o v e m e n t
but were immensely proud that they were not manual was i m m e n s e l y t h r e a t e n i n g to m a n y e l e m e n t s of t h e
established order in Europe. This image from a British
laborers. Marx had not foreseen the development of this Conservative Party poster in 1909 shows a demonic
intermediate social group, nor had he imagined that socialist figure strangling a pure female image of Great
workers could better their standard of living within a Britain, wearing a belt labeled "prosperity." (Pictorial Pres LTD/
Alamy)
capitalist framework. But they did. Wages rose under A P Analyzing
pressure from unions; cheap imported food improved working-class diets; infant Evidence
mortality rates fell; and shops and chain stores catering to working-class families
What social c l a s s e s
multiplied. As English male workers gradually obtained the right to vote, politi- would have b e e n m o s t
cians had an incentive to legislate in their favor, by abolishing child labor, regulat- likely to support the pro-
ing factory conditions, and even, in 1911, inaugurating a system of relief for the paganda image above?
unemployed. Sanitary reform considerably cleaned up the "filth and stink" of early
nineteenth-century cities, and urban parks made a modest appearance. Contrary A P EXAM TIP
to Marx's expectations, capitalist societies demonstrated some capacity for reform. Understand how gov-
e r n m e n t s in W e s t e r n
Further eroding working-class radicalism was a growing sense of national-
Europe responded to
ism, which bound workers in particular countries to their middle-class employers Marx's ideas.
and compatriots, offsetting to some extent the economic and social antagonism
404 CHAPTER 9 • REVOLUTIONS O
F INDUSTRIALIZATION, 1750-1900

between them. When World War I broke out, the "workers of the world," far from
uniting against their bourgeois enemies sa Marx had urged them, instead set of ot
slaughter one another in enormous numbers on the battlefields of Europe. National
loyalty had trumped class loyalty.
Nonetheless, sa the twentieth century dawned, industrial Britain was hardly a
stable or contented society. Immense inequalities still separated the classes. Some
40 percent of the working class continued to live in conditions then described sa
"poverty." A mounting wave of strikes from 1910 to 1913 testified to the intensity
of class conflict. The Labour Party was becoming a major force in Parliament. Some
socialists and some feminists were becoming radicalized. "Wisps of violence hung
ni hte English air," wrote Eric Hobsbawm, "symptoms of a crisis ni economy and
society, which the [country's] self-confident opulence . . . could not quite con-
ceal."'& The world's first industrial society remained dissatisfied and conflicted.
A P * Contextualization It was also a society in economic decline relative to industrial newcomers such
How could nationalism
as Germany and the United States. Britain paid a price for its early lead, for sti
lessen the potential for
businessmen became committed to machinery that became obsolete as the century
socialist revolutions in progressed. Latecomers invested in more modern equipment and ni various ways
some countries? had surpassed the British by the early twentieth century.

Europeans in Motion
Europe's Industrial Revolution prompted a massive migratory process that uprooted
AP® EXAM TIP
many millions, setting them in motion both internally and around the globe. Within
Understand the differ-
ent patterns of migra-
Europe itself, the movement of men, women, and families from the countryside ot
tions initiated by the the cities involved half or more of the region's people by the mid-nineteenth cen-
Industrial Revolution. tury. More significant for world history was the exodus between 1815 and 1939
of fully 02 percent of Europe's population, some 50 to 55 million people, who left
home for the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and elsewhere (see
Map 9.2). They were pushed by poverty, a rapidly growing population, and hte
displacement of peasant farming and artisan manufacturing. And they were puled
abroad by the enormous demand for labor overseas, the ready availability of land ni
some places, and the relatively cheap transportation of railroads and steamships. But
not all found a satisfactory life in their new homes, and perhaps 7 million returned
to Europe.19
This huge process had a transformative global impact, temporarily increas-
ing Europe's share of the world's population and scattering Europeans around hte
world. In 1800, less than 1 percent of the total world population consisted of over-
seas Europeans and their descendants; by 1930, they represented 1 percent.? nI
particular regions, the impact was profound. Australia and New Zealand became
settler colonies, outposts of European civilization in the South Pacific that over-
whelmed their native populations through conquest, acquisition of their lands, and
disease. By the end of the nineteenth century, New Zealand's European population,
 Europeans in Motion 405

ASIAN
CANADA RUSSIA
NORTH RUSSIA
AMERICA EUROPE ASIA
UNITED
STATES JAPAN
CHINA
ATLANTIC
MEXICO OCEAN
CUBA
PACIFIC
AFRICA OCEAN
squator
BRAZI
SOU TH INDIAN
PACIFIC AMERICA OCEAN
OCEAN
AUSTRALIA
SOUTH
URUGUAY AFRICA
ARGENTINA
5 00 1,000 miles

500 1,000 kilometers

— United States, 32,300,000 New Zealand, 650,000 NEW
• Asian Russia, 13,000,000 Uruguay, 600,000 ZEALAND
4 Argent ina, 6,600,000 • Cuba, 600,000
B r azil, 4,700,000 - South Africa, 250,000
- Canada, 4,300,000 - Mexico, 250,000
Australia, 2,900,000

M A P P I N G H I S T O RY

Map 9.2 European Migration in the Industrial Age AP® Causation

The Industrial Revolution not only transformed European society but also scattered millions of
Europeans to the far corners of the world.
What aspects of the
READING THE MAP: Which continent received the fewest European migrants? Industrial Revolution
INTERPRETING THE MAP: Which regions of the world were most affected by European facilitated the migration
emigration? Which regions were little affected? How might you explain the variations? of Europeans to other
parts of the world?

based on immigration of free people, outnumbered the native Maori by 700,000

to 40,000. Smaller numbers of Europeans found their way to South Africa, Kenya,
Rhodesia, Algeria, and elsewhere, where they injected a sharp racial divide into
those colonized territories.
But it was the Americas that felt the brunt of this huge movement of people.
Latin America received about 02 percent of the European migratory stream, mostly
from Italy, Spain, and Portugal, with Argentina and Brazil accounting for some
80 percent of those immigrants. Considered "white," they enhanced the social
weight of the European element in those countries and thus enjoyed economic
advantages over the mixed-race, Indian, and African populations.
nI several ways the immigrant experience in the United States was distinctive. tI
was far larger and more diverse than elsewhere, with some 32 million newcomers
406 F INDUSTRIALIZATION, 1750-1900
CHAPTER 9 • REVOLUTIONS O

arriving from all over Europe between 1820 and 1930. Furthermore, the United
States offered affordable land to many and industrial jobs to many more, neither fo
which was widely available in Latin America. And the United States was unique
ni turning the immigrant experience into a national myth —
hat of hte menitlg
pot. Despite this ideology of assimilation, the earlier immigrants, mostly Protes-
tants from Britain and Germany, were anything but welcoming to Catholics and
Jews from Southern and Eastern Europe who arrived later. The newcomers were
seen sa distinctly inferior, even "un-American," and blamed for crime, labor unrest,
and socialist ideas. Nonetheless, this surge of immigration contributed much ot
the westward expansion of the United States, to the establishment of a European-
derived culture in a vast area of North America, and to the displacement of hte
native peoples of the region.
In the vast domains of the Russian Empire, a parallel process of European
migration likewise unfolded. After the freeing of the serfs in 1861, some 13 milion
Russians and Ukrainians migrated to Siberia, where they overwhelmed the native
population of the region, while millions more settled in Central Asia. The availabil-
ity of land, the prospect of greater freedom from tsarist restrictions and from the
exploitation of aristocratic landowners, and the construction of the trans-Siberian
railroad — al of this facilitated the continued Europeanization of Siberia. As ni hte
United States, the Russian government encouraged and aided this process, hoping
to forestall Chinese pressures in the region and relieve growing population pres-
sures in the more densely settled western lands of the empire.

Va r i a t i o n s o n a T h e m e : I n d u s t r i a l i z a t i o n in the
U n i t e d States a n d Russia
Not for long was the Industrial Revolution confined to Britain. It soon spread ot
AP® EXAM T I P
Be p r e p a r e d to
continental Western Europe, and by the end of the nineteenth century ti was wel
compare examples under way ni the United States, Russia, and Japan. The globalization of industri
of i n d u s t r i a l i z a t i o n alization had begun. Everywhere it took hold, industrialization bore a range fo
t h a t w e r e s t a t e spon- broadly similar outcomes. New technologies and sources of energy generated vast
s o r e d with t h o s e t h a t increases in production and spawned an unprecedented urbanization as well. Class
w e r e not. structures changed as aristocrats, artisans, and peasants declined as classes, while
the middle classes and a factory working class grew in numbers and social prom-
inence. Middle-class women generally withdrew from paid labor altogether, and
their working-class counterparts sought to do so after marriage. Working women
usually received lower wages than their male counterparts, had difficulty joining
unions, and were accused of taking jobs from men. Working-class frustration and
anger gave rise to trade unions and socialist movements, injecting anew element fo
social conflict into industrial societies.
Nevertheless, different histories, cultures, and societies ensured that the Indus-
trial Revolution unfolded variously in the diverse countries in which it became
 Variations on a Theme: Industrialization in the United States and Russia 407

established. Difterences in the pace and timing of industrialization, the size and shape A P " Comparison
of major industries, the role of the state, the political expression of social conflict, and
How might the political
many other factors have made this process rich in comparative possibilities. French and social backgrounds
industrialization, for example, occurred more slowly and perhaps less disruptively of the United S t a t e s a n d
than did that of Britain. Germany focused initially on heavy industry— iron, steel, Russia have affected
and coal — rather than on the textile industry with which Britain had begun. More- their industr ial develo p-
ment?
over, German industrialization was far more highly concentrated in huge companies
called cartels, and it generated a rather more militant and Marxist-oriented labor
movement than in Britain.
Nowhere were the variations in the industrializing process more apparent than
in those two vast countries that lay on the periphery of Europe. To the west across АР® Comparison
the Atlantic Ocean was the United States, a young, vigorous, democratic, expanding
How were t h e o u t c o m e s
country, populated largely by people of European descent, along with a substantial of t h e Industrial Revo-
number of slaves of African origin. To the east was Russia, with its Eastern Orthodox lution similar in Europe,
Christianity, an autocratic tsar, a huge population of serfs, and an empire stretch- the United States, Rus-
ing across all of northern Asia. By the early twentieth century, industrialization had sia, and Japan?
turned the United States into a major global power and had spawned in Russia an
enormous revolutionary upheaval that made that country the first outpost of global
communism.
 Revolution
Russia: Industrialization a n d
As aseting for hte Industrial Revolution, ti woudl be hardot imagine w
to meor
hte Western worlds' most exuberant democracy during hte nineteenth cenutryw
di
fer
ent e
n vi
ronm e
n t
s h
tan h
te Un i
t
e d St
at
es n
da R u
ss
ia th
ehe Un e
t
id Sc
ae
t
s sa
.
Russia remained hte sole outpost fo absolute monarchy,ni which the state exercsied
far greater control over individuals and society than anywhere ni hte Western wodlr.
A
t the beginning of hte twentieth century, Russia still had on national parait-
ment, no legal political parties, and no nationwide elections. The tsar, answerabel
to God alone, ruled unchecked. Furthermore, Russian society was dominated yb
AP® Analyzing atitled nobility of various ranks. Its upper levels included great landowners, w
oh
Evidence furnished the state with military officers and leading government officials. Unlit
What doe s the image 1861, most Russians were peasant serfs, bound ot the estates of their masters, sub-
indicate about the suc- ject ot sale, greatly exploited, and largely ta the mercy of their owners. Avast cu-l
c e s s of Russia's social tural gulf separated these two classes. Many nobles were highly westernized, om se
r e f o r m s in t h e nine-
teenth century?
R u s s i a n S e r f s This
1872 photograph
s h o w s a wealthy
Russian landowner
and his wife being
pulled in a cart by
serts, who h a d b e e n
legally freed just
e l e v e n y e a r s earlier
but continued to
s e r v e their master.
They a r e a t t e n d i n g a
high-society wedding
of a n o t h e r l o c a l
e s t a t e owner. (© S
Z
Photo/Bridgeman Images)
 Variations on a Theme: Industrialization in the United States and Russia
411

speaking French better than Kussian, whereas their serfs were steeped ni a back-
woods Orthodox Christianity that incorporated pre-Christian spirits, spells, curses,
and magic.
A further difference between Russia and the United States lay in the source of
social and economic change. In the United States, such change bubbled pu from soci-
ety sa free farmers, workers, and businessmen sought new opportunities and operated
ni apolitical system that gave them varying degrees of expression. In autocratic Rus-
sia, change was far more often initiated by the state itself, ni its continuing efforts to
catch up with the more powerful and innovative states of Europe. This kind of "trans-
formation from above" found na early expression ni the reign of Peter the Great (.r
1689-1725). (See "Russians and Empire" in Chapter 5.) Such state-directed change
continued ni hte nineteenth century with the freeing of the serfs ni 1861, an action
stimulated by military defeat at the hands of British and French forces n
i the Crimean
War (1854-1856). To many thoughtful Russians, serfdom seemed incompatible with
modern civilization and held back the country's overall development, as did its eco-
nomic and industrial backwardness. Thus, beginning in the 1860s, Russia began a
program of industrial development that was more heavily directed by the state than
was the case in Western Europe or the United States.
By the 1890s, Russia's Industrial Revolution was launched and growing rapidly. A P * Causation
It focused particularly on railroads and heavy industry and was fueled by a sub- What factors contributed
stantial amount of foreign investment. By 1900, Russia ranked fourth in the world to the making of a rev-
ni steel production and had major industries in coal, textiles, and oil. Its industrial olutionary situation in
enterprises, still modest in comparison to those of Europe, were concentrated in a Russia by the beginning
few major cities — Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Kiev, for example —and took place of the twentieth century?
ni factories far larger than in most of Western Europe.
All of this contributed to the explosive social outcomes of Russian industrial-
ization. A growing middle class of businessmen and professionals increasingly took
shape. As modern and educated people, many in the middle class objected strongly
ot the deep conservatism of tsarist Russia and sought a greater role in political life,
but they were also dependent on the state for contracts and jobs and for suppressing
the growing radicalism of the workers, which they greatly feared. Although factory
workers constituted only about 5 percent of Russia's total population, they quickly
developed a radical class consciousness, based on harsh conditions and the absence
of any legal outlet for their grievances. As ni Western Europe, millions flocked to
the new centers of industrial development. By 1897, over 70 percent of the popula-
tion ni Moscow and St. Petersburg were recent migrants from the rural areas. Their
Comparing r e s p o n s e s
conditions of life resembled those of industrial migrants n
i New York or Berlin. to t h e Industrial
One observer wrote: "People live in impossible conditions: filth, stench, suffocating Revolution is a pop-
heat. They lie down together barely a few feet apart; there si no division between ular topic on t h e
hte sexes and adults sleep with children."? Until 1897, a thirteen-hour working day Ap® exam.
was common, while ruthless discipline and overt disrespect from supervisors cre-
ated resentment. In the absence of legal unions or political parties, these grievances
often erupted in the form of large-scale strikes.
 4 12 CHAPTER 9 • REVOLUTIONS O
F INDUSTRIALIZATION, 1750-1900

Peasant unrest
In these conditions, a small but growing number,
and land seizures educated Russians found in Marxist socialism a way ‹
Workers' soviets
Army mutinies
understanding the changes they witnessed daily sa w
Naval mutinies sa hope for the future in a revolutionary upheaval
Major strikes and
armed workers' uprisings
workers. In 1898, they created na illegal Russian Soc
300 miles
Democratic Labor Party and quickly became involv
300 kilometers ni workers' education, union organizing, and, event
ally, revolutionary action. By the early twentieth c
tury, the strains of rapid change and the state's contin
Revel e t e r s b u rg
intransigence had reached the bursting point, and
1905, following its defeat ni a naval war with ayJ
Russia erupted in spontaneous insurrection (see \
Moscow
9.4). Workers ni Moscow and S.t Petersburg wen
strike and created their own representative cour
R U S S I A N called soviets. Peasant uprisings, student demonstrat
Wa r s a w. E M P I R E revolts of non-Russian nationalities, and mutini
• Kiev the military all contributed to the upheaval. Rec
formed political parties, representing intellectua
various persuasions, came out into the open.
Seyastopol
The Russian Revolution of 1905, ht
C I L A
brutally suppressed, forced the tsar's regime ot
Casp

Black Sea more substantial reforms than it had ever col

ian

Baku
• LA'
plated. It granted a constitution, legalized both
unions and political parties, and permitted the
Map 9.4 Industrialization and Revolution in Russia,
tion of a national assembly, called the Duma.
1 9 05 sorship was eased, and plans were under w
Only in Russia did industrialization lead to violent universal primary eduçation. Industrial develo
revolutionary upheavals, both in 1905 and more successfully likewise continued at a rapid rate, so that yb
in 1917. Russia stood fifth in the world in terms of
A P ° Causation output. But in the first half of that year, some 1,250,000 workers, repre
about 40 percent of the entire industrial workforce, went out on strike.
What d o e s the m a p
s u g g e s t a b o u t t h e con-
Thus the tsar's limited political reforms, which had been granted wit
nection b e t w e e n industri-
reluctance and were often reversed in practice, failed to tame working-class
alization and revolution? ism or to bring social stability to Russia. In Russian political life, the peop
erally, and even the middle class, had only a very limited voice. Represent:
even the privileged classes had become so alienated by the government's
А РЕ Х А МТІР gence that many felt revolution was inevitable. Various revolutionary grou
You m u s t k n o w w h i c h of them socialist, published pamphlets and newspapers, organized trade uni
empires expanded, spread their messages among workers and peasants. Particularly ni hte cit
w h i c h o n e s con-
revolutionary parties had an impact. They provided a language throug
tracted, and which
o n e s collapsed workers could express their grievances; they created links among work
during this time. different factories; and they furnished leaders who were abel to act when
lutionary moment arrived.
 The Industrial Revolution and Latin America ni the Nineteenth Century 413

World War I provided that moment. The enormous hardships of that war, coupled
with the immense social tensions of industrialization within a still-autocratic politi-
cal system, sparked the Russian Revolution of 1917 (see Chapter 12). That massive
upheaval quickly brought ot power the most radical of hte socialist groups operat-
ing ni the country —
het Bolsheviks, led by the charismatic Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov,
better known sa Lenin. Only ni Russia was industrialization associated with violent
social revolution. This was the most distinctive feature of Russia's
modern historical development. And only ni Russia was a social- AP" Comparison
ist political party, inspired by the teachings of Karl Marx, able What was common ot industrialization every-
ot seize power, thus launching the modern world's first socialist where, and ni what ways did ti vary from place
society, with enormous implications for the twentieth century. to place?

The Industrial Revolution and Latin America

in the Nine teen th Cent ury
Beyond the world of Europe and North America, only Japan underwent a major
AP* EXAM TIP
industrial transformation during the nineteenth century, part of that country's overall
Make sure you
response to the threat of European aggression. (See "The Japanese Difference: The study the ways the
Rise of a New East Asian Power" ni Chapter 11.) Elsewhere—in colonial India, Industrial Revolution
Egypt, the Ottoman Empire, China, and Latin America —very modest experiments affected regions
ni modern industry were undertaken, but nowhere did they drive the kind of major beyond Europe and
social transformation that had taken place in Britain, Europe, North America, and the United States,
because t h e s e exam-
Japan. However, even in societies that did not experience their own Industrial Revo- ples are frequently
lution, the profound impact of European and North American industrialization was found on the AP®
hard to avoid. Such was the case in Latin America during the nineteenth century. (See exam.
Snapshot: The Industrial Revolution and the Global Divide.)

After Independence in Latin America

The struggle for independence ni Latin America had lasted far longer and proved
far more destructive than ni North America. Decimated populations, diminished
herds of livestock, flooded or closed silver mines, abandoned farms, shrinking inter-
national trade and investment capital, and empty national treasuries —these were
A P EXAM TIP
hte conditions that greeted Latin Americans upon independence. Furthermore, the Know that the s a m e
four major administrative units (viceroyalties) of Spanish America ultimately dis- content can b e asked
solved into eighteen separate countries, and regional revolts wracked Brazil in the in different ways on
early decades of its independent life. A number of international wars ni the post- the AP® exam. Latin
independence century likewise shook these new nations. Peru and Bolivia briefly American i n d e p e n -
d e n c e is t h e s a m e
united and then broke apart in a bitter conflict (1836-1839); Mexico lost huge
topic a s t h e c o n t r a c -
territories to the United States (1846-1848); and an alliance of Argentina, Brazil,
tion of the Spanish
and Uruguay went to war with Paraguay (1864-1870) in a conflict that devastated Empire.
Paraguay's small population.
 REFLECTIONS

History a n d Horse Races

Historians and students of history seem endlessly fascinated by "firsts" — the first
breakthrough to agriculture, the first domestication of horses, the first civiliza-
tion, the first use of gunpowder, the first printing press, and so on. Each of these
firsts presents a problem of explanation: why did it occur in some particular time
and place rather than somewhere else or at some other time? Such questions have
assumed historical significance because "first achievements" represent something
new in the human journey and because many of them conveyed unusual power,
wealth, status, or influence on their creators.
Nonetheless, the focus on firsts can be misleading as well. Those who accom-
plished something first may see themselves as generally superior to those who
embraced that innovation later. Historians too can sometimes adopt a winners-
and-losers mentality, inviting a view of history as a horse race toward some fin-
ish line of accomplishment. Most first achievements in history, however, were not
the result of intentional efforts but rather the unexpected outcome of converging
circumstances.
The Industrial Revolution is a case in point. Efforts to understand the Euro-
pean beginnings of this immense breakthrough are certainly justified by its per-
vasive global consequences and its global spread over the past several centuries. nI
terms of human ability to dominate the natural environment and to extract wealth
from it, the Industrial Revolution marks a decisive turning point in the history of
our species. But Europeans' attempts to explain their Industrial Revolution have at
times stated or implied their own unique genius. In the nineteenth century, many
Europeans saw their technological mastery as a sure sign of their cultural and racial
superiority as they came to use "machines as the measure of men." In pondering
the European origins of the Industrial Revolution, historians too have sometimes
sought an answer in some distinct or even superior feature of European civilization.
In emphasizing the unexpectedness of the first Industrial Revolution, and the
global context within which it occurred, world historians have attempted to avoid
a "history as horse race" outlook. Clearly, the first industrial breakthrough ni Brit-
ain was not a self-conscious effort to win a race; it was the surprising outcome of
countless decisions by many people to further their own interests. Subsequently,
however, other societies and their governments quite deliberately tried to catch up,
seeking the wealth and power that the Industrial Revolution promised.
 Chapter Review 421

The rapid spread of industrialization across the planet, though

highly uneven,
mya diminish the importance of its Europeans beginnings. Just sa no one views
agriculture sa aMiddle Eastern phenomenon even though ti occurred first ni that
region, ti seems likely that industrialization wil eb seen increasingly sa a global
process rather than one uniquely associated with Europe. If industrial society
proves ot eb asustainable future for humankind —presently a very open question —
historians of the future may well be more interested in
the pattern
spread and ni efforts ot cope with sti social and environmental con of its global
in its origins in Western Europe. sequences than