Ch 17 Revolutions of Industrialization

The Industrial Revolution left the greatest significance on Europe in the century and a half between 1750 and 1900. It drew on the Industrial Revolution and was accompanied by the French Revolution. The Industrial Revolution came due to a substantial increase in human population to about 1 million in the early 19th century. The demands for energy were increasingly higher and they were pushing the limits. The nonrenewable fossil fuels such as coal oil and natural gas were replacing renewable energy sources. This left a large impact on the environment.

The Industrial Revolution occurred in Europe because its internal development favored innovation. Additionally, the new European states were in need of some sort of revenue and greatly supported private commerce. Overall, the new phenomenon of highly commercialized and competitive European societies with free markets explain why Europe's Industrial Revolution first began. The Industrial Revolution first started in Britain because it was the most highly commercialized of the larger countries in Europe. Britain was focused on observation, experiments, precise measurements and mechanical devices. This is what played a role in the first major development of the Industrial Revolution, the steam engine.

The laboring class made up 70 percent of Britains population in the nineteenth century. It was this class the suffered the most and benefited the least from the Industrial Revolution. London was extremely over crowded and smokey with their population containing 6 million people. The urban workers worked in terrible conditions and lived in terrible conditions as well.  The young girls and women of the Industrial Revolution were treated the worst of the labor class. They received lower wages than men as well as were kept from joining unions.

The Industrial Revolution was not only confined to Britain. It spread to Western Europe, United States, Russia, and Japan. The different cultures and societies ensured that the revolution unfolded differently in the countries that it spread too. In the United States, this revolution helped turn it into a global powerhouse and in Russia it helped it to be the country with the first global outpost of communism.

The struggle for independence in Latin America lasted so long that it diminished their populations, damaged their natural resources. In these new independent countries, life was extremely unstable.
However, in the later half of the nineteenth century, Latin America was becoming more closely integrates into the world economy due the the products of the Industrial Revolution. The elites in Latin America sought to make their countries more resemblant of Europe or the US. Latin America had economic growth that depended on capital abroad. Ultimately, each region of the world faced its own changes because of the Industrial Revolution.