HIST 486: The Industrial Revolution (Rev. A1) Report a Broken Link

Technology pervades our contemporary world. In kitchens, living rooms, and workplaces, many Canadians use daily a host of highly sophisticated devices. But the microwave, the VCR, and the desktop computer are only the latest wave in a series of inventions that have transformed our lives. This course introduces students to the events that form the background of modern technology and industry, examining the history of the Industrial Revolution.

The course focuses on the ways in which a series of changes in technology transformed peoples lives. The shift from domestic production to factory production that lay at the heart of the Industrial Revolution involved much more than simply a change of workplace. New ways of looking at the world--philosophically, politically, and scientifically--were part of this process, as were new relationships between women and men as well as between employee and employer. Subsequent events as disparate as the European expansion into Africa and the campaign for free trade in nineteenth-century Britain owed much to the changes wrought by industrialization. Early British industrialization ("the industrial revolution") was a profound event that deserved careful and critical study.

Textbook


Alpin, C. (1981). The cotton industry. Peterborough, UK: Shire Publications Ltd.