World History: 18. A Revolutionary Era, Lessons 4–6

Between 1760 and 1840, extraordinary changes took place in Britain. New sources of energy allowed machines to replace the muscle power of humans and animals. We call this period of change the Industrial Revolution.

However, new technology soon made the process of production even faster.

Rather than working at their own pace, workers now had to labor according to strict rules and schedules.

Landowners enclosed large areas of land for commercial farming. This process, called enclosure, helped landowners gain power and wealth.

The demand for workers' rights and better working conditions inspired a new economic ideal called socialism. Under socialism, the workers, rather than private individuals, would own the farms, factories, and other businesses that produce and distribute goods.

In the 1900s, some nations adopted communism—a system in which the government owns all property and makes all economic decisions.

The control of foreign lands by stronger states is called imperialism.

After the British and French occupied China's capital, Beijing, in 1860, the Chinese offered additional concessions, or trading rights, to Europeans.

Western powers often resorted to this kind of gunboat diplomacy—threatening to use firepower to gain concessions—when they could not get what they wanted.

To protect their trade and access to raw materials, European countries began to take control of Africa and Asia.

Alarmed by British aggression against nearby China in the 1830s, the Japanese maintained this policy of isolation.

An assembly line is a process in which a product is assembled as it moves past a line of workstations.

Corporations began to practice what was called vertical integration—buying up companies that supplied them in order to trim costs and keep their prices low.

Groups of workers formed unions, organizations to help workers achieve a common goal.

If businesses did not negotiate, sometimes employees went on strike, a work stoppage intended to force a business to change its policy.

In U.S. cities, many people lived in tenements—tightly packed apartment buildings that had few windows and little ventilation.

The women's movement for suffrage, or voting rights, grew steadily through the late 1800s in the United States and parts of Europe.

More consumer goods became widely available.

With European populations growing, millions of Europeans in search of work were forced to emigrate.