ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the social impact of industrialization which was similar in most Western countries. A serious constraint on the work experience, particularly in the early decades of the industrial revolution, came from limitations in recreational opportunities. Hours of work were very long, and many workers had neither time nor energy for much entertainment off the job. The biggest jolt the industrial revolution administered to the Western family was the progressive removal of work from the home. Governments changed, though responses to the revolution were only one component in the new political systems that emerged in Western nations during the nineteenth century. On the more popular level, the industrial revolution stimulated interest in secular rather than religious culture. As the industrial revolution solidified in Western Europe and the United States during the nineteenth century, it inevitably altered the industrial countries' relationships with other parts of the world.
