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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
May 21, 2017
An interesting book which nicely completes two other volumes by the same author. Recommended.
September 6, 2014
Expected this book to look at how industrial revolution affect life from sociopolitical and economic aspects, but it seems to focus mpre on technical and technological revolution. It took me forever to go through one page without difficulty. No doubt it has valuable information, but it is just not for me.
December 20, 2012
Crump manages to get a lot of information into a small book, and there's a great deal of interest. However, his eccentric use of the semicolon and the general lack of proof-reading is irritating.
January 19, 2025
Interesting insights on the interconnectivity of the Industrial Revolution, albeit written in the style of 6th form history essays
August 28, 2012
A wealth of information. Perhaps too much.
January 31, 2024
Good introduction, plenty of detail, but suffers from a lack of illustrations.
“A Brief History of How the Industrial Revolution Changed the World” by Thomas Crump is an attempt to tell the story of the Industrial Revolution from its early beginnings in the 18th century until almost the present day and covering all continents. This 330-page book covers a lot of ground, is packed with information, and manages to unpick the complicated chronology of this “perfect storm” that originated in the UK.
The writer explains how passionate inventors were responsible for inventions, how entrepreneurs found practical applications for them in the mining, cotton and wool industry and how it triggered further technological breakthroughs and applications in a variety of other sectors. Meanwhile, there is time to explain the impact the transformation had on economics, society and culture in the UK as well as abroad.
Crump spends a lot of words on the workings of the earliest inventions such as the Newcomen atmospheric engine, Arkwright’s water frame or the Spinning Jenny as well as the mills and furnaces that were so crucial to kick-start the Industrial Revolution. Yet, disappointingly, there is not a single illustration of any of these important machines to support the story. As a result, I found the text dry in parts and had to use other sources to understand how the things actually looked like and worked.
Despite this, I did enjoy most of the book because it does give a good overview of the many facets of the Industrial Revolution as well as a number of fascinating, surprising facts. For instance, Newcomen atmospheric engine was installed in Liege mines in 1720, religious toleration played an important part in the success of the early inventions and many of the early trailblazers are still household names. Twining, Wedgwood, Colt, Deere, Le Creusot, Macintosh, Krupp, Siemens and Nobel do not need further introductions.
In summary, “A Brief History” is a good introduction to the Industrial Revolution, has plenty of detail, but suffers from the lack of illustrations. However, I can recommend the book to anybody interested in modern Europe or the history of modern England.
“A Brief History of How the Industrial Revolution Changed the World” by Thomas Crump is an attempt to tell the story of the Industrial Revolution from its early beginnings in the 18th century until almost the present day and covering all continents. This 330-page book covers a lot of ground, is packed with information, and manages to unpick the complicated chronology of this “perfect storm” that originated in the UK.
The writer explains how passionate inventors were responsible for inventions, how entrepreneurs found practical applications for them in the mining, cotton and wool industry and how it triggered further technological breakthroughs and applications in a variety of other sectors. Meanwhile, there is time to explain the impact the transformation had on economics, society and culture in the UK as well as abroad.
Crump spends a lot of words on the workings of the earliest inventions such as the Newcomen atmospheric engine, Arkwright’s water frame or the Spinning Jenny as well as the mills and furnaces that were so crucial to kick-start the Industrial Revolution. Yet, disappointingly, there is not a single illustration of any of these important machines to support the story. As a result, I found the text dry in parts and had to use other sources to understand how the things actually looked like and worked.
Despite this, I did enjoy most of the book because it does give a good overview of the many facets of the Industrial Revolution as well as a number of fascinating, surprising facts. For instance, Newcomen atmospheric engine was installed in Liege mines in 1720, religious toleration played an important part in the success of the early inventions and many of the early trailblazers are still household names. Twining, Wedgwood, Colt, Deere, Le Creusot, Macintosh, Krupp, Siemens and Nobel do not need further introductions.
In summary, “A Brief History” is a good introduction to the Industrial Revolution, has plenty of detail, but suffers from the lack of illustrations. However, I can recommend the book to anybody interested in modern Europe or the history of modern England.
April 27, 2018
Overall, I liked the concept of the book discussing the impacts of the Industrial Revolution and the effects that it portrayed on varying societies, however most of the story was kind of a drag. I felt that many of the chapters were too long, some ranging from 30-40 pages, mostly just dragging on about the same topic and how it effected different nations across the world. I felt the most interesting part of the book came later when Crump discusses how Europe ends up following the so called "American Dream" regarding innovation and where exactly some of their new inventions such as the cotton mill could take them. Leading up to that, all the book really noted were different modern day inventions that changed society such as clay and weaving along with other basic raw materials that I had really no intention of reading about. I genuinely thought this book was going to talk more about the roaring 1920s and how all that fell apart during the great depression in the early 1930s rather that just talking about simply inventions.
May 15, 2022
This has got a ton of science in it about how machines work. If you want a history of "the industrial revolution" that explains how the gizmos work, discussed on the basic physics level of how they got invented, this is it. It might be over-detailed for people who don't want that.
FYI, in the title, by "the world," it is important to note that this is Britain-centric, giving attention to the rest of Europe, the United States, plus significant sections about Asia and Africa. It has almost nothing about South America except to say that Britain sent a couple gold prospectors to Colombia in 1824 and then built trains on the continent mid-century (a section called "South America and Asia" beginning p. 314) and the Panama Canal opened in 1914. Some of that deficiency lies in the title ("...Changed the World"), because this book feels very much like a Britain-centric history of Britain and its influence, so it's about a certain view of "the world."
I wrote more words on Medium.
FYI, in the title, by "the world," it is important to note that this is Britain-centric, giving attention to the rest of Europe, the United States, plus significant sections about Asia and Africa. It has almost nothing about South America except to say that Britain sent a couple gold prospectors to Colombia in 1824 and then built trains on the continent mid-century (a section called "South America and Asia" beginning p. 314) and the Panama Canal opened in 1914. Some of that deficiency lies in the title ("...Changed the World"), because this book feels very much like a Britain-centric history of Britain and its influence, so it's about a certain view of "the world."
I wrote more words on Medium.
February 19, 2025
As a total Industrial Revolutionhead, I found this to be a complete snooze fest. The author went into a great amount of detail about the mechanics of new systems where he could’ve been spending more time broadening his analysis on how the Industrial Revolution actually changed the world.
September 19, 2025
Too many random facts which made a very boring read. Who cares the percentage concentration of gold in a specific mine in Africa? This book is full of specific details on people that barely matter, which makes it hard to sift through to find the more relevant facts, and a very tiring read
Want to Read
August 24, 2019'A book related to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) [fiction or nonfiction] '
August 1, 2023
Jampacked with information. An interesting read for those of us who are intrigued by the development of society and industry in a tough period in history.
February 27, 2024
This was an excellent and very detailed account of the Industrial Revolution and a great way to kick off my middle son's unit study on that period of history.
July 31, 2016
A must-read book for anyone wanting to understand how the Industrial Revolution started and progressed. Unlike what one reviewer said, it does talk about the social implications of these inventions but is mainly for understanding the timeline of how society changed. I found it very detailed and would sometimes read a page over again to fully grasp the story, but it made understanding the revolution much easier. It was a time of slow but massive change. There are other books that dive into the moral and ethical changes and some even that take a stance on whether this was good or bad, but that is playing God. It happened, so we best understand what happened, when it did, why one thing would change society, then apply this knowledge to our present world so we can make the best out of our massive changes that now happen every day, not a decade.
November 5, 2014
This was a good book on the subject.
November 19, 2018
Overzichtelijk en luchtig geschreven boekje met de ontwikkeling van de eerste Newcomen stoomaangedreven mijnpompen tot de industriële vernietiging ten tijde van de Eerste Wereldoorlog. Met redelijk veel aandacht voor de niet-Engelse bijdragen aan de Industriële Revolutie.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews