Steam, Empire, and Inequality

The Industrial Revolution, which began in Britain in the 1760s, fundamentally transformed how humans produced goods. Muscle power gave way to steam power; cottage industries were replaced by factories. The concentration of workers in industrial cities created new social classes, a wealthy capitalist bourgeoisie and a vast, often impoverished, industrial proletariat, and generated unprecedented national wealth that was profoundly unequally distributed.

Industrialization also transformed the global balance of power. Industrial nations needed raw materials and markets for their manufactured goods, providing economic rationale for a new wave of imperialism. By 1914, European empires controlled roughly 84% of the Earth's surface. The Berlin Conference of 1884–85 divided Africa among European powers with no consideration for the peoples already living there, drawing borders that persist, and destabilize: to this day.

Industrialization and empire together generated powerful counter-movements. Socialism and Marxism offered systematic critiques of industrial capitalism. Colonized peoples organized resistance movements from India's Sepoy Mutiny to Egypt's Urabi Revolt. Workers formed unions; women organized suffrage campaigns. The seeds of 20th-century decolonization were sown in the factories and colonial offices of the 19th century.