British Industrial Revolution

Between approximately 1750 and 1850, Great Britain experienced the world's first industrial revolution. In the space of just three or four generations, a society of peasant farmers living life according to the ancient rhythms of nature was rebuilt into a dynamic industrial community of smokestack factories and great bustling cities. Horse-drawn wagons were replaced by the iron railroad, sailing ships by the steamboat. Britain's economic transformation became the model of modernity for the rest of the world. While industrialization brought wealth, it also brought with it new social problems—urban squalor, economic inequality, and environmental pollution. The British Industrial Revolution looks at how and why the Industrial Revolution occurred and what its consequences were for the ordinary men, women, and children caught up in its extraordinary changes.