The Industrial Revolution

Patrick N. Allitt

Book 0 of The Great Courses

Language: English

Publisher: The Great Courses

Published: Sep 26, 2014

Collection: Nonfiction
Reading Ease: 74.41
Page Count: 19
Word Count: 66134

Description:

From electric lights to automobiles to the appliances that make our lives easier at work and at home, we owe so much of our world to the Industrial Revolution. In this course, The Great Courses partners with the Smithsonian - one of the world's most storied and exceptional educational institutions - to examine the extraordinary events of this period and uncover the far-reaching impact of this incredible revolution. Over the course of 36 thought-provoking lectures, longtime Great Courses favorite Professor Allitt introduces you to the inventors, businessmen, and workers responsible for transforming virtually every aspect of our lives and fueling one of the greatest periods of innovation in human history.

The technological achievements of this era are nothing short of astonishing. Thanks to inventions such as the steam engine and processes such as large-scale iron smelting, industrial entrepreneurs were able to mechanize labor, which allowed for a host of new efficiencies such as division of labor, mass production, and global distribution.

You'll discover the science behind some of the most astounding inventions in modern history, including the spinning jenny, the incandescent light bulb, and the computer processor. You'll learn how these inventions came about and consider what effects these technologies had on every aspect of human life.

Get an inside look at the history of industrial innovation and explore the lives of engineers, inventors, architects, and designers responsible for changing the world - as well as ordinary workers who lost their livelihoods to new technologies and suffered from unsafe working conditions. The story of the Industrial Revolution is complex, and these lectures will leave you with a new appreciation for the amazing human achievements all around us.

Lectures

  1. Industrialization Is Good For You
  2. Why Was Britain First?
  3. The Agricultural Revolution
  4. Cities and Manufacturing Traditions
  5. The Royal Shipyards
  6. The Textile Industry
  7. Coal Mining: Powering the Revolution
  8. Iron: Coking and Puddling
  9. Wedgwood and the Pottery Business
  10. Building Britain's Canals
  11. Steam Technology and the First Railways
  12. The Railway Revolution
  13. Isambard Kingdom Brunel: Master Engineer
  14. The Machine-Tool Makers
  15. The Worker's-Eye View
  16. Poets, Novelists, and Factories
  17. How Industry Changed Politics
  18. Dismal Science: The Economists
  19. American Pioneers: Whitney and Lowell
  20. Steamboats and Factories in America
  21. Why Europe Started Late
  22. Bismarck, De Lesseps, and Eiffel
  23. John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil
  24. Andrew Carnegie and American Steel
  25. American Industrial Labor
  26. Anglo-American Contrasts
  27. Electric Shocks and Surprises
  28. Mass-Producing Bicycles and Cards
  29. Taking Flight: The Dream Becomes Reality
  30. Industrial Warfare, 1914–1918
  31. Expansion and the Great Depression
  32. Mass Production Wins World War II
  33. The Information Revolution
  34. Asian Tigers: The New Industrialized Nations
  35. Environmental Paradoxes
  36. The Benign Transformation