ABSTRACT
Revolutions in technology and the organization of work inevitably redefined basic structures in society. Some of the results are obvious though fundamental nevertheless. The rapid rise of cities and the corresponding reduction of rural populations are cases in point, creating massive alterations of the patterns of the Agricultural Age, completely reversing the balance of human residence. Other changes are slightly less familiar, as in the real transformations of the age groupings, with resulting issues, for example in the rise of the elderly, that are still being grappled with today. Additional shifts, like the decline or disappearance of the aristocracy, are not always connected to the emergence of industrial society, but the links are in fact both clear and revealing: the traditional ruling elite of the Agricultural Age could not, collectively, adjust to the new economic and social order.
