The purpose of this paper is to discuss the cause of the Industrial Revolution in Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
The Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries has been described as the single most significant event in the history of the world. For the first time ever, "the shackles were taken off the productive power of human societies, which henceforth became capable of the constant, rapid, and . . . limitless multiplication of men, goods and services" (Hobsbaum, p. 45). The antecedents of this take-off into sustaining economic development did not occur abruptly or without warning; rather, they can be traced back through centuries of European history. The more immediate causes of this revolution –- for example, the invention of the steam engine –- were themselves the products of a long evolutionary chain of ideas and events.
Some scholars contend that it is misleading to term this industrial take-off a "revolution." Artz argues that "even in England, where the transition to industrialism came most rapidly, a close examination of the situation has shown that the changes were too gradual to warrant calling them a revolution" (Artz, p. 29). But this argument puts too narrow an interpretation on the concept of revolution. The forces that led to industrialization in Great Britain may have been gradual, but the effects created a radical transformation in the social, political, and economic structure, the effects of which are still being felt today. The advent of industrialism on the Continent was even more gradual than in Great Britain, but the resulting effect on all aspects of society was equally fundamental and far-reaching.
Unlike a political revolution, for which an exact start date can be determined, there is no single cataclysmic event that marked the onset of the Industrial Revolution. No shots were fired or proclamations issued marking the beginning of industriali...