The Industrial Revolution
For the first time in history, output per person begins rising without limit.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 100 years
- Known to
- ± 10 years
- Era
- Industrial, Holocene
From around 1760 in Britain and spreading through the nineteenth century, coal, steam, iron and mechanised textiles break the Malthusian ceiling that had held living standards roughly constant since agriculture. Real wages, life expectancy and population all begin sustained growth. It also produces child labour, industrial slums, twelve-hour days and the first sustained rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide. Almost every subsequent political argument is a response to it.