ABSTRACT
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Europe's industrial and technological lead over the rest of the world was greater than ever before or since. At the same time, important intellectual, cultural, and social changes were percolating in Europe that would contribute to the creation of a more recognizably modern mind-set. From 1850 to 1914, an intensification of the process of industrialization occurred in Europe that is often termed the Second Industrial Revolution. During the early phases of industrialization, before 1850, life for workers in Europe's cities had been, by any standard, miserable. In addition to fostering urbanization, Europe's industrial progress allowed it to expand its control over large areas of Africa and Asia between 1880 and 1914. This so-called New Imperialism followed a lull in Europe's acquisition of additional overseas colonies that had lasted for most of the nineteenth century.
