ABSTRACT
The transition from predominantly agricultural to predominantly industrial society is one of the great shifts in world history, generating the most significant changes that have occurred in the human condition over the past two centuries. Other developments have been important as well, like the great wars or decolonization, and these must be folded into a grasp of modern world history along with the industrial transition. But the wide-ranging transformations that inevitably and/or at least quite probably result from industrialization form the essence of the modern global story. This book has insisted on and briefly illustrated some of the big pattern adjustments, not only in economics and technology, where industrialization commonly centers, but in social, political, and even personal realms as well. This same goal-of trying to make sure that the leading transformations are clearly defined and on a global and not just Western basis-must inevitably provoke some cautions, and these warrant a brief reminder in closing out the account.
