The concept of an industrial revolution denotes an economic transition in which the means of production become increasingly specialized, mechanized, and organized. This process uses technology, in some association with science, to create large increases in the productive capacity of an economy, which in turn eventually transforms society as a whole. Industrial revolution is less violent or dramatic than political revolution and has roots that extend into the preindustrial agrarian past as well as consequences that continue to influence distant places and times. Great Britain inaugurated the Industrial Revolution in the late eighteenth century, and other nations have undergone similar revolutions in subsequent years, continuing to the present. This process may be described as a single ongoing Industrial Revolution or as a series of separate revolutions that influence one another. Either way, the Industrial Revolution is without question one of the most important transformations in human...