Ch.17 Revolutions of Industrialization

This weeks reading was on the Revolutions of Industrialization which took place between 1750 and 1900. It drew on the scientific revolution and the French revolution to transform European society. Most of the famous Indian nationalists believed that "Industrialization is, I am afraid, going to be a curse for mankind.." This is funny however because Mahatma Gandhi led his country to independence from the British colonial rule by 1947. Something to note is during the Industrial Revolution the human population grew from about 375 million people in the 1400s to about 1 billion people in the early 19th century. The Industrial revolution shows a response by human beings to nonrenewable fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas. These were all replaced for renewable sources like wind, water, wood, and the physical labor of humans and animals. This is the time where sewers and industrial waste were emptied into rivers which turned them into "poisonous cesspools." One quote that i found interesting and very powerful in the book stated, "Increasingly, human industrial activity left a mark not only on human society but also on the ecological, atmospheric, and geological history of the earth." It was interesting because between 700 and 1400 C.E. China was the world leader in technological innovation. Some numbers that were outstanding to me was that the British industry used 52 million pounds of cotton in 1800 and then in 1850 consumed 588 million pounds. The coal is Britain went from 5.23 million tons in 1750 to 68.4 million tons just a hundred years later. One thing important to note is that the location of the country actually protected them from invasions during the French Revolution. The middle class aka amorphous group, were the ones who benefited mostly from the industrialization. The women during this time of the middle-class families were usually homemakers, wives, and mothers that were in charge of creating an emotional haven for their men and a refuge from a heartless  and cutthroat capitalist world. Around 70% of the population in Britain during the 19th century were manual workers in the mines, ports, factories, construction sites, workshops, and farms of an industrialization Britain. These revolutions eventually gave way to other revolutions with some being successful and some not so successful. After 1868 the take-off of the Japanese Revolution took place. In 1905 there was the failed revolution by Russia. In between 1910-1920 was the Mexican revolution and finally in 1917 was the Russian revolution.

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