ABSTRACT
The Industrial Revolution has long been a terrain of debate and controversy among economic and social historians. Debates over how much change, how fast, and what impact this had on communities and peoples have been part of the process of making the concept itself. These debates, among what have become rather specialist historians, have in turn affected our wider historical sense of identity. The Industrial Revolution has been conceived of as a period of transition, however long the period and varied its characteristics. It is a part of the ‘life story’ of the nation, conceived generally as its formative childhood and adolescence. The Industrial Revolution has been the starting point of accounts of political and social change and of the making of the modern economy. The developmental indicators and their trends, centred on the growth of national output, capital formation, demographic growth, and changes in economic and industrial structures, are known just as surely as are the weights, heights, motor skills, speech and understanding of the developing child.
