ABSTRACT
Any explanation of the industrial revolution must account for new behaviors on the part of literally thousands of people: the entrepreneurs who gradually moved toward a factory system, the workers who staffed the factories, the investors who provided the capital, the consumers who eagerly accepted the machine-made products. Several approaches currently vie for attention in explaining the industrial revolution, though they overlap to some extent. The first explanation is highly focused, in looking at particular features of the European or British situation by the eighteenth century. The second approach urges that Europe, even including Britain, was not very different from other leading manufacturing centers like China and India; therefore, a causation scheme that relies heavily on some overall European distinctiveness is off the mark. The third pattern of explanation plays down a specifically European focus in favor of emphasizing shifting global relationships and outright European exploitation of its commercial and military position.
