STUDY OF CIVILISATION TEXTS (Academic Year 2022-23

YEAR 3/ G2 § 6

Teacher : Prof. Nadjia Amrane

S5

Part ONE

The Industrial Revolution in Britain and the US

i. The Industrial Revolution: Meaning and Characteristics

A.The Industrial Revolution is the second most important event in the history
of humanity after agriculture and the domestication of animals which
guaranteed food security and permitted civilization.

B.The Industrial revolution is the result of a slow global process of inventions

and innovations to which all places and societies of the world contributed. In
Europe itself it owes much to the late medieval development of cities which
experimented with financial mechanisms and economic forms of organization
borrowed from nations and worlds in decline.

C.The Anglo-Saxon industrial system, which we shall study, was seriously

challenged by German, Japanese, Russian and to a lesser extent French and
Belgian own industrial ways before America’s domination of the world after
WWI.

D. The industrial revolution can be divided into two phases. The first phase is a
period of large scale rationalized production and accumulation of capital
while the second phase is characterized by economic organization,
consumption or capital disaccumulation, and knowledge / information
revolutions. The current industrial revolution , which reproduces the latter
basic paradigm, may be viewed as a late age of this second industrial
revolution

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E.The industrial paradigm was completed at the eve of WWI, with the
following years realizing technological, social,cultural and political ideals which
were put forward previously but were checked by wars, revolutions and
political uncertainties.

ii. Main Causes of the Emergence and Success of the Industrial Revolution in
Britain

A.As the world richest commercial nation in the eighteenth century, Britain
controlled the financial mechanisms and the navigation routes needed for the
free circulation of goods and services on which capitalist industrialization was
built. In addition trade, and in particular the slave trade, promoted the
accumulation of capital to be invested in industry.

B. As a power in the East, and with the help of the hegemonic British East India
Company, an early industrializing Britain annihilated any local obstacle that
stood in its way. Therefore the prosperous Indian textile industry, also called
proto-industry, was dismantled, with its skilled hands forced to emigrate to
other colonies as unskilled labor and its markets in the Indian Ocean
appropriated by Britain. China was dispossessed of its porcelain industry whose
techniques and motives were “borrowed” by the British factories. The
stymieing of the Middle Eastern textile production, or proto-industry, is yet to
be investigated.

B.As a nation at peace, while continental Europe was riddled with wars and
revolutions, Britain had a prosperous agriculture and a growing well- fed
population about to constitute the healthy and cheap labor needed for little
profitable and productive factories( also called mills or workshops). The road
and canal systems developed in the eighteenth century for agricultural reason
was recycled to facilitate circulation of labor, goods and services to and fro
industrial centers.

C.As a nation rich in coal and iron, which were abundant in its Northern
part ,in which industrialization therefore concentrated, Britain was self-
sufficient in terms of raw materials for its early industrialization. Moreover, its
damp climate was favorable to the production of textile which made for the
early success of the industrial revolution.

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D. As a culturally advanced nation, with scientific societies which flourished in
Scotland and the Midlands during the eighteenth century, Britain was
favorable to applied sciences and practical industrial pursuits which were
frowned upon elsewhere as base and dishonorable. Many industrialists were
actually individual innovators who built a factory to make money out of their
invention.

E. As a parliamentary monarchy, with a king with little personal money and

who therefore looked at industrialization as a new source of income in terms
of taxes or joint ventures, British industrialization was not opposed politically.
European industrialists staged revolutions against monarchies who refused to
share power with them.

Key Words: Commercial eighteenth-century Britain, The British East India

Company,Scottish Renaissance, Midlands Renaissance, French Revolution,
Napoleonic Wars, French Colbertian capitalism, German Wilhelmine
capitalism, Belgian industrialization, Japanese industrialization, Russian
Industrialization, proto-industrialization

Further Reading

Eric Hobsbawm, Industry and Empire (chapter one, “Britain in 1750”) PDF

Sheilag C.Ogilvie and Markus German, “The Theories of Proto-

Industrialization”

www.econ.cam.ac.uk › Ogilvie-Cerman-1996-Theories

Frank Perkins,“Proto-Industrialization and Pre-Colonial South Asia”

https://academic.oup.com/past/article/98/1/30/1592424

Audio-Visual Resources

How the Enlightenment in Britain led to Capitalism and the Industrial

Revolutionhttps://youtu.be/WPTFycFfUJQ

How East India Company Grew into a Thuggish Multi

Nationalhttps://youtu.be/KJHXx6bdsAI

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The Fourth Industrial Revolution §What Were Those Other
Two?https://youtu.be/LvpjwHT7o4I