For Teachers: Teachers' Guide

Rethinking the Industrial Revolution

Study Questions

  1. What are the main features associated with preindustrial societies and with industrial societies?
  2. Why is 1800 seen as an important historical hinge in economic history?
  3. How do the economic parallels between Europe and China in the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries affect our understanding of subsequent economic development both in Europe and around the world?
  4. Why are regions a useful unit of analysis?
  5. How does pushing back the beginning of the Industrial Revolution to 1800 affect our interpretation of Europe’s maritime exploration of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries?