Transcript Hist 355 Modern World History Instructor: Dr. Donald R. Shaffer Upper Iowa University.

Hist 355
Modern World History
Instructor: Dr. Donald R. Shaffer
Upper Iowa University
The Industrial Revolution
Introduction
 What was the Industrial Revolution?
◦
Innovations in the methods of
producing manufactured goods that
emphasized discipline, efficiency, and
application of new technology
 Closely related to:
◦
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Market Revolution: increasing amount
of economic activity (exchange and
production) taking place on a cash
basis
Transportation Revolution:
improvements that made the
movement of goods and people
faster, cheaper, and more reliable.
 It started in Great Britain in the late
1700s, spread to other places in the
western world in the 1800s and
later
Aeolipile
The Industrial Revolution
Key Innovations

Steam Power
◦
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
Plans for
James Watt’s
steam engine
Iron Production
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
Steam engines ancient, but during
the 19th-century became much more
efficient
Dirty secret of early industrialization:
remained heavily dependent on
water power
Steel became the quintessential
building material of the Industrial
Revolution
Improvements in iron production
culminate in the mass production of
cheap steel
Production of Textiles
◦
◦
The first product to experience
significant industrialization was
textiles
New technology first applied to the
spinning of thread and then the
production of cloth
James
Hargreaves’
Spinning Jenny
The Industrial Revolution
Spread of the Industrial Revolution
 A fascinating question, oft asked by
economic historians, was why Britain
was first?
 Still, it is undeniable that the
Industrial Revolution spread out of
Britain, first to Continental Europe
and the Americas

In Continental Europe, initially
France, Holland, Belgium, but
particularly Germany


The United States industrialization
began in earnest during the
Napoleonic Wars, as the conflict
disrupted European (mostly British)
imports of manufactured goods



The industrialization of Germany helped
to support its rise as a great power
Textiles emerged in the U.S. through
industrial espionage
Industrialization was mostly a northern
phenomenon, helping to prompt the
Civil War
Japan began a crash industrialization
in the 1870s
The Industrial Revolution
Social Impact

Rise of the Factory System
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Factories were integral in the rise of
industrialization
They helped organize and enforce
industrial discipline
Factories cost workers the
advantages of preindustrial
discipline
“Deskilling”: artisans lost prestige
and earning power
Some employers also intruded into
the private lives of their workers


Luddites: a movement in Britain of
skilled workers put out of work by
industrialization who destroyed
factories and machinery
Other problems faced by workers
◦
Insecurity: the business cycle, itself
a product of industrial capitalism,
from time to time caused mass
unemployment

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No government safety net for the
unemployed
Unsafe working conditions
Abuses such as child labor
Age of Empires
Nationalism and the Liberal State
 Nationalism: the idea that people
sharing a common language and
culture should be able to form their
own nation state
An increasingly common ideal in 19th
century Europe
 Most famously realized with the
emergence of the German Empire in
the 1870s
 Many frustrated would-be national
groups in Europe

 Liberalism
Saw governmental power emanating
from the people
 Belief in national state governed by
the rule of law and governmental
powers limited by a constitution
 Defined by Great Britain, and
eventually the United States

Age of Empires
Imperialism
 Imperialism: the notion that
certain nations and cultures were
superior to others, and therefore
had an inherent right and duty to
rule over inferior peoples
 Imperialism manifested itself in
the late 19th century in a drive by
European nations to claim any
territory they could subdue and
spread their influence where that
wasn’t practical
 Imperialism most dramatically
illustrated in rush during the late 19th
century by European powers to claim
parts of Africa for colonies, but this
expansionism occurred elsewhere as
well
Age of Empires
Empires in Ascendency
 British Empire
 The most powerful and
widespread of the great empires,
upon which the sun never set
 French Empire
 France aspired to the greatness
of the British and possessed a
strong sense of cultural mission
 German Empire
 Later comer with ambitions to
supplant the British
 Japanese Empire
 Japan emerged from isolation in
the 1860s, quickly modernized,
and by the early 20th century was
becoming a major imperialist
power in Asia
Age of Empires
Empires in Decline
 Chinese Empire
 China under the control of the
Manchu, who adopted Han
Chinese culture
 Humiliated repeatedly by
European powers and eventually
by the Japanese as well
 Ottoman Empire
 Islamic Empire controlling
today’s Middle East, Anatolia,
and parts of the Balkans
 Empire unraveling, with parts
virtually independent
 The only thing that delayed its
final dissolution was European
powers couldn’t agree on how to
carve up its territories
The Chinese required
foreign intervention to end
the Taiping Rebellion in the
1850s/1860s
Age of Empires
Rise of Ideologies
 The early 20th century was a
time of great political idealism
 Liberal Capitalism (originated in
Great Britain, took root in the
U.S.): faith in markets and
constitutional government
 Fascism (will be discussed in the
origins of World War II)
 Communism
 Mainly based on the teachings of
Karl Marx
 Believed that liberal capitalism
was sewing the seeds of its own
destruction through exploitation
of the working class, who would
eventually rise up and create a
socialist state
Communism became closely
associated with the Russian
Revolution led by Vladimir Lenin
and his Bolsheviks