CROSSING THE THRESHOLD
TO THE MODERN AGE
The Aftermath of Settling Down to
Farming
When paleolithic hunter-gatherers settled
down to farming, around 8,000 B. C., what
were some of the outcomes?
Outcomes of Agrarian Civilisations
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Population growth: Malthusian cycle
Domestication of animals
Urbanization
Expansion: spread of people, plants,
animals, disease, goods, and ideas
• Interconnection: Travel, communication
• Innovation
• Beginnings of Economics, Commerce
disciplines
Rise of Great Civilisations
• Sumerian (Mesopotamian, 3300 BC – 1940
B.C. )
• Indus Valley (2600 BC to around 1900 BC. )
• Egyptian (3000 B. C. to 31 B.C.)
• Mayans (2600 B. C. to 800 A.D.)
• Chinese (2070 B.C. to 1912 A.D.)
• Greeks (800 B. C. to 146 B.C.)
• Persians (700-530 B.C.)
• Romans 500 B. C. to 476 A.D.
• Aztecs (Mexico) 1200-1300 A.D.
EXPLORATION
• The great explorers connected the four world
zones, giving rise to a global civilisation and
the modern era.
One result of this interconnection…
the Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution
From about 1775 to 1850, the Industrial
Revolution was marked by the transition to
new manufacturing processes, including:
• A shift from hand production methods to
machines
• New chemical manufacturing and iron
production processes
• Improved efficiency of water power;
increasing use of steam power
• Development of machine tools
A Turning Point
The Industrial Revolution marked a major turning
point in history; almost every aspect of daily life was
influenced in some way. In particular, average income
and population began to exhibit unprecedented
sustained growth.
Birthplace of the Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution began in England and
most
of the important technological innovations were
British:
England had huge coal deposits with navigable
rivers nearby for transport.
England had an overseas empire that provided
raw materials for British factories and a captive
market for finished goods.
A British Textile Factory
A German factory, 1868
Why didn’t the Industrial
Revolution start in China, with its
silk textiles?
• China’s coal supply was too far from its major
cities.
• China’s Confucian tradition discouraged
innovation and change.
• Lack of Chinese government support for sea
exploration.
• China’s preoccupation with defense from
nomadic attacks.
Spread of the Industrial
Revolution
The first countries after England to develop
factories and railroads were Belgium,
Switzerland, France and Germany.
Building a national railroad system was an
essential part of industrialization.
Industrialization came to the United States in
1789.
TEXTILES
Textiles were the dominant industry of the Industrial
Revolution in terms of employment, value of output
and capital invested; the textile industry was also the
first to use modern production methods.
Cottage Industry
Before the Industrial Revolution, textiles were
produced under the “putting-out” system in
which merchant clothiers had their work done
in the homes of artisans or farming families.
Textile Factory
Innovations that Helped to Start
the Industrial Revolution
• Textiles – Mechanised cotton spinning
powered by steam or water greatly increased
the output of a worker. The power loom
increased the output of a worker by a factor of
over 40. The cotton gin increased productivity
of removing seed from cotton by a factor of
50.
• Steam power – The efficiency of steam
engines increased so that they used between
one-fifth and one-tenth as much fuel. The
Metal Industries
• A major change in the metal industries during
the era of the Industrial Revolution was the
replacement of wood and other bio-fuels with
coal. For a given amount of heat, coal required
much less labour to mine than cutting wood
and converting it to charcoal, and coal was
more abundant than wood.
Famous Inventions of the Time
• Cotton gin: Invented by Eli
Whitney, greatly speeded up the
process of removing seeds from cotton fiber.
• Spinning Jenney: A multi-spindle spinning
frame invented by James Hargreaves
and other inventions….
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•
•
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Steam engine [James Watt]
Water-powered loom [Edmund Cartwright]
Electric light bulb [Thomas Edison]
Steamboat [Robert Fulton]
Steam locomotive [George Stephenson]
Telegraph [Samuel F. B. Morse]
Telephone [Alexander Graham Bell]
Dark Side of the Industrial
Revolution
Child labour was extensively used in factories.
They often worked a 12-hour night shift.
India’s Role in the Industrial
Revolution
India provided the three
ingredients of Britain's
Industrial Revolution:
capital, raw materials
and market.
Consequence of the Industrial
Revolution: Rapid Acceleration
• Before the Industrial Revolution, the world’s
population was 670 million. Today it is 7.4
billion, more than a tenfold increase in only
300 years.
• In the 20th century the world’s economy grew
fourteen-fold.
• The global use of energy in the 20th century
expanded thirteen-fold.