This concise, accessible new edition examines the industrial revolution as a global phenomenon, in terms of causes and results extending through the 20th century and into the present. The Industrial Revolution is generally recognized as a major development in world history. Even so, the study of it is routinely handled as simply part of Western European history or as part of individual national histories. Peter N Stearns offers genuinely world-historical approach, looking at the international factors that touched off the industrial revolution and at its global spread and impact. This revised third edition begins with an examination of industrialization in the West, but also treats later cases in other societies - including Japan, Russia and the United States, as well as newly-revised sections on Asia and Latin America - providing the comparative analysis usually lacking in single-nation treatments. Although the text defines the essence of industrialization in terms of technology and economic organization, it pays substantial attention to larger social results, especially changes in the experience of work and shifts in family functions and gender roles. Including a new chapter on global environmental impact, "The Industrial Revolution in World History" seeks to build on recent scholarly advances to include a more fully international and human perspective in our understanding of the industrial revolution. The third edition also features fully revised sections on globalization, causation and non-Western societies, further strengthening Stearns' discussion of complex industrial and international trends.
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About the Author
Peter N Stearns is provost and professor of history at George Mason University. He is the editor of the Journal of Social History and the author of many books, including World Civilizations: The Global Experience and World History in Brief: Major Patterns of Change and Continuity.
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27 of 30 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Some do, some don't
14 Nov 2004
By Donald B. Siano
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
Stearns has written here a very broad description of how the industrial revolution evolved, or failed to evolve, in many countries over the last two centuries. This is a very big task, and has no well defined beginning or end, nor even very many milestones. Moreover, there are, according to Stearns, nearly as many paths to development as there are countries that develop. No tipping points, no critical inventions and no heroic personalities either. While I suppose there is a certain truth to this point of view, and may even be historically accurate, it makes for a somewhat dull read. I prefer to have my history laced with a few gee-whizes accomplished by some impossibly heroic figures. But that's just me.
His recitation of the changes that took place is almost formless, without generalities, or even much definition. While it was certainly humbling to contemplate the breadth of his scholarship, I didn't get what I was looking for out of this work--some hypotheses or possible explanations for what happened. I appreciate the difficulty of the problem and the mystery of ultimate historical causation, but the author would have been better off, I think, if he had taken a little stab at it, at least.
The book has four maps and a dozen or so illustrations, but only five graphs--and most of those are ridiculously parsimonious in the amount of data shown. Surely in a subject of this scope, tables and better graphs would have helped to organize it.
Despite these shortcomings, I think the book is a worthwhile contribution to the history of a very important part of the human story, and I'm glad to have read it.
His recitation of the changes that took place is almost formless, without generalities, or even much definition. While it was certainly humbling to contemplate the breadth of his scholarship, I didn't get what I was looking for out of this work--some hypotheses or possible explanations for what happened. I appreciate the difficulty of the problem and the mystery of ultimate historical causation, but the author would have been better off, I think, if he had taken a little stab at it, at least.
The book has four maps and a dozen or so illustrations, but only five graphs--and most of those are ridiculously parsimonious in the amount of data shown. Surely in a subject of this scope, tables and better graphs would have helped to organize it.
Despite these shortcomings, I think the book is a worthwhile contribution to the history of a very important part of the human story, and I'm glad to have read it.
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