History glossary
Industrialisation
the shift from hand production to machine production, factories, fossil fuels, and large-scale industry.
- Category
- Economic process
What it means
Industrialisation transformed economies, cities, labor, transport, warfare, and daily life. It began in Britain before spreading elsewhere, driven by coal, steam power, textiles, iron, finance, empire, and new forms of work.
Related terms
Stories using this term
The Opium Wars
From the Canton System to the fall of Beijing, the Opium Wars turned illegal trade, imperial power and Qing weakness into a new unequal treaty order.
Imperial Japan
From Meiji modernisation to colonial rule, militarism, mobilisation and defeat, Imperial Japan rose as a modern empire before collapsing in 1945.
The Meiji Restoration
From Tokugawa order to imperial restoration, conscription, industrialisation and military victory, the Meiji era transformed Japan into a modern imperial power.
The Holocaust
From legal discrimination to genocide, the Holocaust traces twelve years of escalating persecution that killed six million Jews and millions of others across Nazi-occupied Europe.
Nazi Germany
From Weimar collapse to WWII, Nazi Germany imposed totalitarian rule, expansion, and genocide.
Operation Barbarossa
From Hitler's ideological war in the east to Soviet survival before Moscow, Barbarossa turned expected blitzkrieg into prolonged attritional catastrophe.
The Anglo Boer Conflict
A war between Britain and Boer republics that exposed imperial costs and reshaped South Africa.
The Celtic World Before Rome
Celtic tribes spanned Europe, shaping culture, conflict, and a lasting legacy.
