Industrialization completely reshaped society, from how people made things to how they understood themselves. Let’s begin by defining industrialization and looking at some of its key characteristics.

For millions of years, immense coal deposits slept underground, holding the secret to one of the great technological revolutions in human history. In eighteenth-century Britain, that secret was brought to light.

The Industrial Revolution didn’t remain only in Britain for long. As industrial production techniques spread across Europe and beyond, the revolution reshaped entire economies and wiped out traditional ways of life.

What happens when industrialization goes global? We’ll look at how Japan confronted this reality, and compare that country’s experience to Egypt’s. Why was Japan able to industrialize so quickly while Egypt’s Industrial Revolution was cut short?

Industrialization created dramatic divisions between rich and poor. Those forced to sell their labor for wages became known as the working class. New class relationships created new political and economic ideologies, such as socialism.

Slavery had always had its critics, but it wasn’t until the nineteenth century that strong abolitionist movements began to threaten the slave trade and plantation system.

The battle for workers’ rights is a never-ending struggle, but many of the first significant wins by activists were in defence of the most vulnerable workers of all: the children who toiled under appalling conditions in mines and factories.

Industrialization pulled millions of women into the workforce. Paid less than men and excluded from public life, many women workers began demanding a voice in politics and control over the products of their labor.