Chapter 13 Chapter 11 Industrial Revolution (Part 1)

The material culture of mankind has changed far more in the past 200 years than in the previous 5000 years. In the 18th century, the human way of life was essentially the same as that of the ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians.Humans still build houses from the same materials, carry themselves and their luggage with the same animals, propel ships with the same sails and oars, make clothes with the same textiles, and light with the same candles and torches.Today, however, metal and plastic complement stone and wood; railroads, automobiles, and airplanes replace oxen, horses, and donkeys; steam engines, internal combustion engines, and atomic power replace wind and human power to propel ships; Competing with linen, electricity has eclipsed candles and has become the source of power that can do a lot of work at the flick of a switch.

The causes of this epoch-making change are found on the one hand in the scientific revolution mentioned in the previous chapter and on the other in the so-called industrial revolution.The reason people qualify with "so-called" is because they are uncomfortable using the term Industrial Revolution.We have pointed out that, in some respects, the Industrial Revolution began well before the eighteenth century and continues for various practical purposes up to the present day.Clearly, this is not a revolution in the sense of a startling change that begins and ends abruptly. The fact remains, however, that during the 1780s there was an astonishing advance in productivity, or, as economists now put it, "a take-off into self-driving development."More specifically, there was produced a system of mechanized factories which produced commodities at rapidly decreasing costs in such quantities that instead of being able to satisfy their original needs, they created their own needs.The automobile manufacturing industry is an example of this now-common but always unprecedented phenomenon.It wasn't the demand for cars that existed at the turn of the century that created today's huge car manufacturing industry, but the ability to make cheap Model T "Ford" cars fueled the modern deluge of cars.

The Industrial Revolution is of paramount importance to world history because it not only provided the main goal of the underdeveloped world in the 20th century, but also provided the economic and co-foundation for European world hegemony in the 19th century.Today, after each new country successfully "takes off" in the sense of politically independent existence, it takes as its own goal to "take off" in the corresponding direction of economically independent existence. The first question that arises when examining the Industrial Revolution has to do with its timing.Why did the Industrial Revolution happen in the late eighteenth century and not in 100 or 1,000?The answer is to be found in large part in the astonishing economic development in Europe following the great overseas expansion, a development we have already mentioned that was so remarkable that it is now commonly called the Commercial Revolution.

The first characteristic of a commercial revolution is a change in the commodities traded in the world. Before the 16th century, the most important items were the shipment of spices from east to west and gold and silver in the opposite direction.But gradually, new overseas products became the main consumer goods in Europe, and their commercial value increased.These products included new beverages (cocoa, tea, and coffee), new dyes (indigo, carmine, and brazil), new spices (pimento, and vanilla), and new foods (guinea fowl, turkey, and Newfoundland cod, whose supply has grown considerably).Another important feature of the commercial revolution was the dramatic increase in the volume of trade. Between 1715 and 1787, French imports from overseas regions increased tenfold, while exports increased seven to eightfold.There was an almost equally astonishing increase in British trade - between 500% and 600% in both imports and exports in the period from 1698 to 1775.The general trade of Europe is growing, but colonial trade is taking an ever larger part of it.In 1698, for example, about 15 percent of Britain's seaborne trade was with its colonies, but by 1775 this figure had risen to 33 percent.In addition, French and British trade with the rest of Europe was greatly increased by the re-export of colonial goods.

The commercial revolution contributed to the industrial revolution in several important ways.First, it provided a great, ever-expanding industry for European industry, especially for the manufacture of textiles, firearms, metalware, ships, and ship accessories, including lumber, ropes, sails, anchors, pulleys, and nautical instruments. market.Birmingham, the great center of England's industry, became important because it supplied the colonies with a variety of products; Shackles, handcuffs, and collars.... In the primeval forests of America, Birmingham's ax knocks down the old trees; in the cattle pastures of Australia, Birmingham's bells ring; in the East and West Indies , people tended the cane fields with Birmingham hoes."

To meet the needs of these new markets, industry must improve its organization and technology.The nail manufacturing industry in the Midlands of England provides a good example.In order to meet the growing needs of the colonies for nails, it developed mechanized rolling mills and slitting machines which increased production.It also developed a system of decentralized processing at home: iron dealers who produced nails, that is, iron factory owners, distributed a pile of difficult needle strips to nail workers, who processed them at home, and then shipped them back for sale.By 1775, nail manufacturing used 10,000 tons of iron per year and employed about 10,000 workers.An observer at the time remarked that anyone who "knows the need for nails in America will be amazed if he has not seen the enormous number of houses built of wood in America; I wonder where the nails necessary for a house are made."

The steps taken by the nail manufacturing industry to adapt itself to the American market are very important.First, it acquired technological advances2 which, together with those made by other industries, provided a solid mechanical foundation for the Industrial Revolution.Thus, the pioneers of the Industrial Revolution started with the help of many newly developed mechanical inventions; these included the printing press.Handlooms, spinning wheels, twisters, mining equipment, iron furnaces, automatic ribbon looms, and hosiery machines.The system of decentralized home work employed by the nail-making and other industries is fundamentally different from the traditional system of craft guilds in which the same man produces a commodity and sells it to consumers for a fixed income. profits.Now, a middleman, that is, a middleman with capital, stands between the producer and the consumer.He used his own capital to buy raw materials, which he "distributed" to artisans who were not members of the guild, and they processed them on a piece-rate basis.He then picks up the finished product and sells it to consumers for as much profit as possible.Producers and consumers were thus separated by a new middleman whose purpose—quite different from the guild's fixed prices and fixed profits—was to buy cheap and sell high to maximize profit.It may be added that this system of decentralized work at home is sometimes called the home contract system; the reason is that the artisan, quite different from the guild member who works in the employer's workshop, usually does piecework in his own home. .

In any case, the significance of this system of decentralization of home processing was that it was not bound by the restrictions of numerous guilds, and thus made possible a huge increase in industrial output.Some middlemen found it convenient and profitable to gather their artisans under one roof and supply them with materials and tools.There is a poem about Jack of Newbury; he built his house in the early 16th century, installed more than 200 looms, and employed about 600 men, women and children to work them. Together with his intermediary partners in other industries, Jack developed a decentralized system of home processing and factory systems.All it takes is labor-saving powered machinery to initiate the Industrial Revolution.

The building of factories and machines for the Industrial Revolution required financing, and the commercial revolution provided the large amounts of capital necessary for this.Capital flowed into Europe from all over the world in the form of profits.In Siberia, the Russians sold tin cans to the natives in exchange for fur enough to fill them.In North America, the merchants of the Hudson's Bay Company charged the Indians for a pile of beaver skins as much as a rifle for each rifle they sold.In Mexico and Peru, the Spaniards used indigenous labor to unearth vast quantities of silver.Drake made a profit equal to 4,700% of his voyage investment on one privateering cruise against the Spaniards.Queen Elizabeth provided him with several ships and shares, netting £250,000.She invested some of it in the Levantine Company, whose profits were later used to start the East India Company, which won the Indian Empire for Britain. "Indeed," said John Maynard Keynes, "the loot that Drake brought back with the ship 'Golden Hart' may well be regarded as the wellspring and origin of British foreign investment." The loss of hundreds of thousands of slaves to labor on American plantations provided huge profits to European adventurers.In fact, Bristol became a second-class city in England in the first 75 years of the 18th century because it was the center of the slave trade and the sugar trade.A good local analyst wrote, "There is not a brick in this city that is not made of the blood of slaves. Luxurious mansions, luxurious lives, and servants in special uniforms are all products of wealth, and this wealth is Made of the misery and groans of the slaves bought and sold by the Bristol merchants.” More profitable than the slave trade itself were the sugar plantations run by slave labor.The sugar cane planters of the West Indies were the tycoons of the time, compared only to the "monopoly" who made their fortunes in India in the past.These were profligate and costly, but more notable in the long run were the several East India Companies, West India Companies, Levantine Companies, African Companies and various other companies such as the Moscow Company, Profitable proceeds of the Hudson's Bay Company, and of the various Land Colonial Companies of North and South America.

It was this commercial revolution that gave rise to the dynamic, expanding society known as capitalism.In this society, "the desire for profit became the driving motive...People used various complicated and often indirect methods to use large sums of capital accumulated for profit." During this period, it was considered evil for a person to try to earn more money than was necessary to live comfortably in the position in which he was born.But, with the advent of the commercial revolution, the spirit of desire for wealth appeared in all aspects of economic enterprise.In commerce, merchant guilds with fixed prices and fixed profits were replaced by joint-stock companies that sought to obtain the highest possible returns for their shareholders.In industry, craft guilds with many regulations on quality, methods of production, and profits were swept away by middlemen who practiced a system of decentralized home processing.Financially, the medieval church's prohibition on usury was ignored by the big banks that made loans, sold bills of exchange, and provided many other financial services.

All these phenomena were new in the later Middle Ages, but they were greatly enhanced by the Commercial Revolution. After 1500, various institutions and spirits of capitalism developed rapidly.Of course, the capitalism of those centuries was nothing like the capitalism of today.Because business enterprises are more capitalistly organized than industry or agriculture, this earlier form of capitalism is often called merchant capitalism.Whatever name is given to the economic system that prevailed in Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, however, the important point is that it was dynamic and expansive.In his incessant movement for profit, the capitalist extends his sphere of activity to the whole world.In doing so, the capitalists contributed in many ways to the coming of the Industrial Revolution and the establishment of Europe's world economic hegemony. The Industrial Revolution first started in England.This is an extremely important historical fact, because it explains a great deal about Britain's primacy in world affairs in the nineteenth century.The question of why the Industrial Revolution began where it actually began is therefore of much more than academic interest. The question may be simplified if we exclude those countries which for some reason failed to bring about the Industrial Revolution.Italy had been economically dominant, but, with the discoveries, and with the shift of the main merchant shipping routes from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, it fell behind.Spain was economically dominant in the sixteenth century, but, for reasons already mentioned, it later lost out to the northwestern states.The Netherlands enjoyed its golden age in the 17th century, however, it lacked the raw materials, labor resources and water power necessary for machine production.The countries of Central and Eastern Europe were largely unaffected by the commercial revolution and thus did not develop the know-how, trade markets, and capital reserves necessary for industrialization. Thus, only France and Great Britain were left as possible leaders; of the two, Great Britain possessed certain advantages that enabled it to elect far ahead of its rivals.In commerce, for example, the two countries were roughly on par in 1763, or, if anything, France was slightly ahead.However, France has three times the population of the UK.France also lost out in foreign trade by being expelled from Canada and India in 1763.In addition, the blockade of the British fleet during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars reduced the value of French trade to about half of what it had been in 1788, a decline which did not return to its original level until 1825. Another important advantage England enjoyed was her early leadership in the basic coal-mining and iron-making industries.As Britain's preservation forests were being depleted, it had long started using coal as fuel and using coal dust to smelt iron.By the time of the French Revolution in 1789, Britain produced about 10 million tons of coal per year, while France produced only 700,000 tons of coal.A poet of the time, aware of what this infinite source of power meant to British industry, wrote: Britain was also the first to develop the blast furnace, which produced iron in bulk, unlike the iron-smelting furnaces of old. In 1780 England produced one-third as much iron as France; by 1840 it was more than three times as much.All of this meant that Britain was moving forward in producing goods that were consumed on a large scale for which demand was large and steady, while France specialized more exclusively in producing luxury goods for which demand was limited and volatile.Voltaire may have thought of this when he wrote in 1735, "We are, in fact, the whipped cream of Europe." Britain also had more working capital that could be used to finance the Industrial Revolution.More commercial profits flow into Great Britain than into any other country.British royal expenditure and military expenditure are lower than those of France. Therefore, British taxes are less and the financial situation of the British government is better.In addition, banking developed earlier and more efficiently in Britain, providing mutual funds for individual and corporate businesses.By the end of the seventeenth century, London was competing with Amsterdam as the lending center of the world; London's stock exchange had been established in 1698, while Paris had no official stock exchange until 1724. It is also worth noting that talent among entrepreneurs is impressively concentrated in the UK.This can be seen to some extent from dissidents such as the Darbys who worked in the iron industry, the Cookworthy who made porcelain, the Brights who ran cotton mills and participated in political activities, and the Daltons who devoted themselves to science. and Eddington et al.The freedom from routine and the emphasis on personal responsibility produced a large number of experimenters and inventors among the Dissidents, and their frugality led them to reinvest profits in business rather than squander them in luxury.The influence of the Nonconformists in England was increased by the influx of people of the same sect from the Continent.For example, with the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, France lost considerable manpower to run businesses, especially in the textile industry; they all flowed into England. Britain also has an advantage in labor supply; due to the early disintegration of guilds and the occupation of traditional striped farmland, Britain has obtained ample mobile labor.The disappearance of the guilds and their multifaceted limitations made it easier to adopt a system of decentralized home processing and to establish factories with powered machinery.The enclosure began in the 16th century and continued for three centuries, culminating in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.Homesteaders often had to sell their labor because the enclosure of commons and wasteland left them no land to graze or fuel.The earlier enclosures were prompted by the increase in the price of wool, so land was mostly used for grazing.In later periods, the need to produce food for the rapidly growing cities became more important, so the enclosed lands were cultivated by people using the latest and most efficient methods.These methods include the replacement of the old land-wasting method of letting fields fallow by crop rotation, the breeding of superior breeds of cattle that have not been improved by scientific breeding, and the development of certain agricultural machines such as horse-drawn tillers and automatic seeders. These reforms would not have been possible under the stripped farming system inherited from the Middle Ages.However, it was possible, and advantageous, to carry out these reforms, thanks to enclosures.At the time, markets for agricultural products were expanding, and new technologies made possible significant increases in production.Viscount Townsend Tseng devoted himself to a crop rotation with turnips and became known as "Townsend the Turnip," and he increased the yield of wheat from 10 bushels to 24 bushels per acre on his land. Between 1710 and 1795, Robert Bakewell's scientific breeding methods made it possible to increase the average weight of calves from 50 pounds to 148 pounds, the average weight of beef cattle from 370 pounds to 800 pounds, and the average weight of sheep from 28 pounds to 800 pounds. lbs increased to 80 lbs, bringing the average lamb weight from 18 lbs to 50 lbs.From an economic point of view, therefore, causality clearly enables one to take a big step forward. From a social point of view, however, the situation is quite different. Between 1714 and 1820, more than 6 million acres of land in Britain were enclosed.This means serious confusion and suffering.Poor peasants lost part or even all of their land and were forced to work as tenants or casual laborers, otherwise, they had to go to the city to find work.Frightened by the enormity of the evictions of the English yeomans, individuals concerned with society were frightened into vocal opposition.Disturbing and unpleasant as the process of enclosing land was, it performed two essential functions in the case of the Industrial Revolution—it provided labor for factories and food for cities.Indigenousness can thus be seen as a precondition for the primacy of Indigenous industries in the nineteenth century.Enclosures did occur in some other countries of Europe, but to a much lesser extent.In France, for example, the French Revolution provided farmers with more land, thereby increasing their attachment to their homeland and making them less willing to pack up and go elsewhere. The Industrial Revolution cannot be attributed solely to the genius of a small group of inventors.Genius undoubtedly played a part, but more important was the combination of favorable forces at work in the late eighteenth century.Inventors seldom make inventions except when motivated by a powerful need.Many of the principles on which new inventions were based were known centuries before the Industrial Revolution, but, for lack of incentive, they were not applied to industry.This is the case, for example, with steam power.Steam power was known and even used in Hellenistic Egypt, but only for opening and closing temple doors.In England, however, a new source of power was urgently needed for pumping water from the mines and turning the wheels of new machinery.The result gave rise to a series of inventions and improvements until finally a steam engine suitable for mass production was developed. This pattern of necessity leading to invention is clearly perceptible in the development of the cotton textile industry.The cotton industry was the first to be mechanized, as the British public had grown fond of cotton goods originally imported from India.In fact, the use of cotton was so extensive that the powerful old woolen industry managed in 1700 to pass laws prohibiting the importation of cotton cloth or cotton goods.However, this law did not prohibit the manufacture of cotton cloth.This created a unique opportunity for the local industry, which was quickly and fully exploited by enterprising intermediaries.The question then was how to speed up spinning and weaving sufficiently to satisfy the needs of a large, protected domestic market.The tools used at that time were basically the same as those used by the Romans.The only exception was John Kay's "flying shuttle"—a simple bouncing device that accelerated the speed at which weft yarns passed back and forth across warp yarns—invented and patented in 1733.But the Pod alone was not enough, and a carefully coordinated campaign was launched to encourage the inventions that facilitated production. In 1754, the "Society for the Incentives of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce" was formed, which offered money, medals, and other remuneration for established achievements.In 176O, for example, it offered a bonus to a spinning machine, explaining, "The makers of woolen, linen, and cotton found it necessary to obtain a sufficient number of hands during the summer, when the spinners were busy harvesting the crops. , is extremely difficult." These favorable conditions led to a series of inventions that made it possible to fully mechanize the cotton industry by 1830.Among new inventions, Richard Arkwright's water-powered spinning machine (1769), James Hargreaves' multi-spindle spinning machine (1770) and Samuel Crompton's mule The Spinning Machine (1779) is excellent.The hydraulic spinning machine can spin thin and strong yarn between the top rollers; with the multi-spindle spinning machine, one person can spin 8 yarns at the same time, then 16 yarns, and finally more than 100 yarns; The mule spinning frame is also known as the "muir" (mule) spinning frame because it combines the advantages of the hydraulic spinning frame and the multi-spindle spinning frame.All these new spinning machines were soon producing far more yarn than the weavers could handle.A clergyman named Edmund Cartwright attempted to correct this imbalance by patenting in 1785 a power loom, initially powered by horses and after 1789 by steam.This new invention was poorly made and commercially unprofitable.However, after ZO years of improvements, its worst shortcomings have been corrected.By the 1820s, the power loom had largely replaced hand weavers in the cotton industry. Just as an invention in spinning leads to a corresponding invention in weaving, so an invention in one industry prompts a corresponding invention in another.The new cotton-spinning machine required power that was more abundant and reliable than that provided by traditional waterwheels and horses.Around 1702, a primitive steam engine was built by Thomas Newcomen and was widely used to pump water from coal mines.However, it consumes too much fuel compared to the power it provides, so the economics are only applicable to the coal fields themselves. In 1763, James Watt, a technician at the University of Glasgow, began to improve Newcomen's steam engine.He formed a business partnership with manufacturer Matthew Bolton, who financed rather expensive experiments and initial prototypes.The enterprise proved extremely successful; by the time Watt's basic patent expired in 1800, there were some 500 Bolton-Watt steam engines in use.38% of the steam engines were used to pump water, and the rest were used to provide rotary power for textile mills, iron furnaces, flour mills and other industries. The historical significance of the steam engine cannot be overstated no matter how much it is exaggerated.It provides a means to manage and utilize thermal energy and provide impetus for machinery.Thus, it ended man's age-old dependence on animal, wind, and water power.At this time, a huge new energy has been obtained by human beings, and soon, human beings will be able to develop other fossil fuels hidden in the earth, namely oil and gas.Thus began a trend which has led to the present situation: Western Europe and North America have 11.5 times and 29 times the energy available per person in Asia, respectively.The significance of these numbers is evident in a world where economic and military power is directly dependent on the energy available.In fact, it could be said that European domination of the world in the nineteenth century was based less on the steam engine than on any other means or power. The new cotton spinning and steam engines required increased supplies of iron, steel, and coal—a need that was met by a series of improvements in mining and metallurgy.Originally, iron ore was smelted in small furnaces filled with charcoal.The depletion of forests forced manufacturers to turn to coal; it was at this time, in 1709, that Abraham Darby discovered that coal could be turned into coke, just as wood could be turned into charcoal.Coke proved to be as effective as charcoal and was much cheaper.Darby's son developed a huge bellows driven by a waterwheel, which made the first mechanically operated blast furnace and greatly reduced the cost of iron. In 1760, John Smeaton made a further improvement; he discarded the leather and wood bellows used by Darby and replaced it with a pump consisting of four metal cylinders fitted with pistons and valves Composed and driven by a waterwheel.More important were the improvements made by Henry Cotter, who in 1784 invented the "churn" method of removing impurities from molten pig iron.Leete placed molten pig iron in a reverberatory furnace and stirred or "churned it."In this way, carbon is removed from the melt by the oxygen in the air circulating in the melt.When carbon and other impurities are removed, hot iron is produced that is more malleable than the original brittle molten or pig iron.At that time, coal mining technology also improved in order to keep up with the rising demands of the iron industry.Of utmost importance was the use of the steam engine for mine drainage and, in 1815, Sir Humphrey Davy's invention of the safety light; the safety light greatly reduced the dangers of mining. As a result of these developments, England produced more coal and iron by 1800 than the rest of the world combined.More specifically, British coal production rose from 6 million tons in 1770 to 12 million tons in 1800 and then to 57 million tons in 1861.Similarly, British iron production increased from 50,000 tons in 1770 to 130,000 tons in 1800, and then to 3.8 million tons in 1861.Iron has become plentiful and cheap enough to be used in general construction, thus, mankind has entered not only the age of steam, but also the age of steel. The growth of the textile, mining, and metallurgical industries created a need for improved means of transport that could move large quantities of coal and ore.The most important step in this direction was taken in 1761; that year the Duke of Bridgewater opened a seven-mile canal between Manchester and the coal mines of Worsley.The price of coal at Manchester fell by half; and the duke afterwards extended his canals to the Mersey, at a cost of but one-sixth of the price charged by overland porters.These astonishing results sparked a canal-building frenzy that gave Britain 2,500 miles of canals by 1830. Parallel to the canal age is the great road-building period.The roads were primitive at first, and people could only travel on foot or on horseback; during the rainy season, the wagons loaded with goods could hardly be pulled by horses on these roads. After 1750, a group of road engineers—John Metcalfe, Thomas Telford, and John McAdam—developed the technique of building roads with hard surfaces that could withstand traffic year-round.The speed of traveling in a four-wheeled carriage increased from 4 miles per hour to 6 miles, 8 miles or even 10 miles per hour.Night travel is also possible, so that a trip from Edinburgh to London, which used to take 14 days, now takes only 44 hours. After 1830, roads and waterways were challenged by railroads.This new mode of transport was realized in two phases.First came the steel rails or rails, which were in general use by the middle of the eighteenth century, for transporting coal from the mouth of a mine to a waterway or to a place where the coal was burned.It is said that on the track, a woman or a child can pull a wagon carrying three-quarters of a ton, and a horse can do what 22 horses do on ordinary roads.The second stage was to install the steam engine on the wagon.The leading figure in this regard was the mining engineer George Stephenson, who first used a locomotive to pull several coal cars from the mine to the Tyne. In 1830, his locomotive "Rocket" traveled 31 miles at an average speed of 14 miles per hour, pulling a train from Liverpool to Manchester.Within a few years, railroads dominated long-distance transportation, moving passengers and goods faster and cheaper than was possible by road or canal.By 1838, Britain had 500 miles of railways; by 1850, 6,600 miles; and by 1870, 15,500 miles. Steam engines were also used in water transportation.From 1770, Scottish, French and American inventors experimented with steam engines on board ships.The first successful commercial steamboat was built by the American Robert Fulton; he had traveled to England to study painting, but, after meeting James Watt, turned to engineering. In 1807, he launched his steamer "Claremont" on the Hudson River.Equipped with a Watt steam engine driving a paddle wheel, the ship traveled 150 miles up the Hudson River to Albany.Other inventors followed Fulton's example, notably Henry Bell of Glasgow, who laid the foundations of Scottish shipbuilding on the banks of the River Clyde.Early steamboats were used only for river and coastal voyages, but in 1833 the steamship "Royal William" sailed from Nova Scotia to England. 5 years later. The steamers Sirius and Great Western crossed the Atlantic in opposite directions in 16 and a half days and 13 and a half days respectively, about half the time required by the fastest sailing ships. In 1840, Samuel Kennard established a regular transatlantic shipping line, announcing in advance the dates of arrival and departure of ships.Kennard touts his line as an "ocean railway" that has replaced "the irritating irregularities inseparable from the age of sailing."By 1850, steamboats had outperformed sailboats in carrying passengers and mail, and began to compete successfully for freight. The Industrial Revolution brought about a revolution not only in transportation but also in communication.In the past, people have been able to send a message to a distant place only by wagon, postman or ship.However, in the middle of the 18th century, the telegraph was invented; the principals who made this invention were an Englishman, Charles Wheatstone, and two Americans, Samuel F. B. Morse and Alfred W. Ear. In 1866, a transatlantic cable was laid, establishing a direct communication link between the Eastern Hemisphere and the Americas. In this way, man has conquered time and space.Since time immemorial, humans have expressed the distance between places in terms of the number of hours of travel by carriage, horseback or sailboat.But now, humans have crossed the earth in boots that span seven leagues a step.Man was able to cross oceans and continents by steamship and railroad, and to communicate with his fellow men all over the world by telegraph.These achievements, along with others that have enabled humans to harness the energy of coal, produce iron cheaply, and spin 100 threads at a time, illustrate the impact and significance of this first phase of the Industrial Revolution.This stage united the world to a degree far greater than it had previously been under the Romans or the Mongols; and it made possible European domination of the world, which lasted until the The Industrial Revolution spread to other regions. The Industrial Revolution that began in the late eighteenth century has continued steadily and relentlessly to the present day.Therefore, the division of its development into different periods is essentially arbitrary.However, if 1870 is regarded as a transition date, a division can still be made.It was around 1870 that two important developments occurred—science began to greatly influence industry, and techniques for mass production were improved and applied. We mentioned in the previous chapter that science initially had little influence on industry.The inventions in the textile industry, mining industry, metallurgy industry and transportation industry that we have hitherto grasped are very few made by scientists.Instead, they were mostly done by talented craftsmen who responded to extraordinary economic incentives.After 1870, however, science began to play a more important role.Gradually it became an integral part of all large-scale industrial production.Laboratories of industrial research, equipped with expensive instruments and staffed with trained scientists who systematically study assigned problems, replaced the attics and workshops of the solitary inventor.早先，发明是个人对机会作出响应的结果，而如今，发明是事先安排好的，实际上是定制的。沃尔特·李普曼已恰当地将这种新形势描述如下： 1870 年以后，所有工业都受到科学的影响。例如，在冶金术方面，许多工艺方法（贝塞麦炼钢法、西门子-马丁炼钢法和吉尔克里斯特-托马斯炼钢法）给发明出来，使有可能从低品位的铁矿中大量地炼出高级钢。由于利用了电并发明了主要使用石油和汽油的内燃机，动力工业被彻底改革。通讯联络也因无线电的发明而得到改造。 1896年，古利埃尔莫·马可尼发明了一台不用导线就能发射和接收信息的机器，不过，他的成果是以苏格兰物理学家詹姆斯·克拉克·麦克斯韦和德国物理学家亨利希·赫兹的研究为基础的。石油工业迅速发展，因为地质学家和化学家做了大量工作；地质学家以非凡的准确性探出油田，化学家发明了从原油中提炼出石脑油、汽油、煤油和轻、重润滑油的种种方法。科学对工业的影响的最惊人的例子之一可见于煤衍生物方面。煤除了提供焦炭和供照明用的宝贵的煤气外，还给予一种液体即煤焦油。化学家在这种物质中发现了真正的宝物——种种衍生物，其中包括数百种染料和大量的其他副产品如阿司匹林、冬青油、糖精、消毒剂、轻泻剂、香水、摄影用的化学制品、烈性炸药及香橙花精等。 工业革命的第二阶段也以大量生产的技术的发展为特点。美国在这一方面领先，就象德国在科学领域中领先一样。美国拥有的某些明显的有利条件可说明它在大量生产方面居首位的原因：巨大的原料宝库；土著和欧洲人的充分的资本供应；廉价的移民劳动力的不断流入；大陆规模的巨大的国内市场、迅速增长的人口以及不断提高的生活标准。 大量生产的两种主要方法是在美国发展起来的。一种方法是制造标准的、可互换的零件，然后以最少量的手工劳动把这些零件装配成完整的单位。美国发明家伊莱·惠特尼就是在19世纪开始时用这种方法为政府大量制造滑膛枪。他的工厂因建立在这一新原理的基础上，引起了广泛的注意，受到了许多旅行者的访问。其中有位访问者对惠特尼的这种革命性技术的基本特点作了恰当的描述：“他为滑膛枪的每个零件都制作了一个模子；据说，这些模子被加工得非常精确，以致任何滑膛枪的每个零件都可适用于其他任何清膛枪。”在惠特尼之后的数十年间，机器被制造得愈来愈精确，因此，有可能生产出不是几乎相同而是完全一样的零件。第二种方法出现于20世纪初，是设计出装配线。亨利·福特因为发明了能将汽车零件运送到装配工人所需要的地点的环形传送带，获得了名声和大量财产。有人对这种传送带方式的发展作了如下生动的描绘： 然后，借助于先进的机械设备，对大堆大堆的原料的处理作了改善。大量生产的这种方法也是在美国得到改善的，其最好的例子见于钢铁工业。以下这段对制造铁路钢轨的过程的描述，说明了这种方法： 从纯经济的观点来看，这一规模的大量生产所意味的东西，从钢铁大王安德鲁·卡耐基的以下这番无可非议的大话中可觉察出来： 科学和大量生产的方法不仅影响了工业，也影响了农业。而且，这又是发生在科学应用方面领先的德国和大量生产方面领先的美国。德国化学家发现，若要维持土壤的肥力，就必须恢复土壤中被植物摄取的氮、钾和磷。最初，是利用天然肥料来达到这一目的，但是，将近19世纪末时，天然肥料让位于形式上更纯粹的、必需的无机物。结果，无机物的世界性生产大大增长，在1850至1913年间，硝酸盐、钾碱和过磷酸钙的产量从微不足道的数量分别上升到899，800公吨（其中四分之三用于制肥料）、1，348，000公吨和16，251，213吨。 在美国，由于农场规模巨大和缺乏足够的农业劳动力，农业机械的发明得到了促进。取代马匹的拖拉机一天能拉旋转式犁翻耕多达50 英亩的土地。联合收割机能自动地收割庄稼、打谷脱粒，甚至还能自动地将谷物塞进布袋以供应市场。与这些新机械同样重要的是高粮仓、罐头食品制造厂、冷藏车、船和迅速的运输工具，它们导致一个不仅提供工业产品、也提供农业产品的世界市场。加拿大的小麦、澳大利亚的羊肉、阿根廷的牛肉和加利福尼亚的水果可在世界各地的市场中找到。因而，农民受农业革命的影响并不亚于先前工匠受工业革命的影响。历来是提供独立的生活手段的农业正在成为一种与面向全国性市场和国际市场的生产相适应的、大规模的商业事业。