ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the fundamental difficulties that beset study and thought on the alleged social effects of industrialization. It analyzes the role of early industrialization in social change. Industrialization is commonly regarded as a major factor, if not the most important factor, in the profound alteration undergone by Western civilization in the last two centuries. It is recognized to be a radically different type of economic production, based on the utilization of physical power such as steam and electricity, the replacement of hand labor by machines, and the development of a factory system. The image of industrialization as a powerful agent producing specific social results is so strong and seemingly so self-verifying that no need is perceived to specify the character of industrialization or to trace its mode of operation. The chapter examines critically the concept of industrialization as used in scholarly thought.
