ABSTRACT
Three major developments defined the second phase of the industrial revolution in world history from the late nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth: industrialization outside the West, redefinition of the West's industrial economy, and growing involvement of nonindustrial parts of the world, along with an overall intensification of international impact. In terms of long-range impact, international developments were particularly striking. Several major new players began to industrialize by the 1880s and were the first clearly non-Western societies to undergo an industrial revolution. The late nineteenth century is sometimes referred to as a "second industrial revolution" in western Europe and the United States, and although the term is misleading—many fundamental trends simply intensified—it invites inquiry into the recurrent shifts in direction that the industrial revolution set in motion even when most of the basic features were already established.
