ABSTRACT
The industrial revolution was the most important single development in human history over the past three centuries. Industrialization has been a set of human changes, and historians' understanding of this human side has informed some of the most exciting research findings of recent decades. The two central features of industrialization—revolutions in technology and in the organization of production—yielded one clear result: a great increase in the total output of goods and in individual worker output. The industrial revolution has surged forward in three major chronological phases—when it began and spread directly only within the West; when it matured and began to exceed Western boundaries and when it became effectively global. Two mistakes in dealing with the industrial revolution are particularly common, though understandable. Those are the phenomenon that is too often pinned to a single time period and the second common error involves geography. The chapter also presents an overview on the key concepts discussed in this book.
