歷史上共有四次工業革命，分別指工業的機械化、電氣化、自動化和信息化。今天所說的工業革命是第一次工業革命，即工業機械化。工業革命是托福考試常考話題，作為史實類內容，工業革命類文章內容基本一致，今天我們一起了解工業革命相關背景知識。 

OG：Artisans and Industrialization 

TPO 6-1: Powering the Industrial Revolution

TPO 18-1: Industrialization in the Netherlands and Scandinavia 

TPO 26-1: Energy and the Industrial Revolution

TPO 34-2:The Development of Steam Power

TPO 49-3: Background for the industrial Revolution

一、什么是工業革命？

工業革命起始時間：18世紀60年代至19時間中期（大概是1760年至1850年），是資本主義工業化的早期歷程。

標志：瓦特改良了蒸汽機，從而開創了以機器代替人工的工業浪潮。第一次工業革命使用的機器都是以蒸汽或者水力作為動力驅動，工業革命以機器取代人力，是以大規模工廠化生產取代個體作坊手工生產的一場生產與科技革命。機器的發明及應用成為了這個時代的標志，因此歷史學家稱這個時代為“機器時代 “the Age of Machines”。英國是最早開始工業革命的國家。從英國向整個歐洲大陸傳播，19世紀傳至北美。一般認為，蒸汽機、煤炭、鋼鐵是促成工業革命技術加速發展的三項主要因素。工業革命都是以輕工業開始，向其他部門發展。

In the 1760s, James Watt perfected a separate condenser for the steam, so that the cylinder did not have to be cooled at every stroke; then he devised a way to make the piston turn a wheel and thus convert reciprocating (back and forth) motion into rotary motion. He thereby transformed an inefficient pump of limited use into a steam engine of a thousand uses. The final step came when steam was introduced into the cylinder to drive the piston backward as well as forward, thereby increasing the speed of the engine and cutting its fuel consumption.

Watt's steam engine soon showed what it could do. It liberated industry from dependence on running water.

（節選自TPO 6-1 Powering the Industrial Revolution）

二、興起原因

18世紀時英國的手工業生產已經不能滿足市場的需要，這就對作坊手工業提出了技術改革的要求。在這種趨勢下，工業革命就首先在英國發展起來了

（1）政治前提：資產階級在英國的統治日益加強。

（2）英國通過圈地運動，產生并聚集了大量勞動力，擴大了英國國內市場。

（3）海外貿易和殖民擴張，為英國積累原始資本，提供了廣闊的海外市場。

（4）工廠手工勞動時積累的經驗和生產技術的進步。

（5）隨著市場需求的增大，手工生產已無法滿足需求。

工業革命起源于英國。此時人力和畜力的實力有限；水力的局限性影響發展——工廠必須臨河而建；傳統的能源（如wood），已經不能滿足生產需要了。靠人力將natural resources轉化成energy極不容易。

By the eighteenth century, Britain was experiencing a severe shortage of energy. Because of the growth of population, most of the great forests of medieval Britain had long ago been replaced by fields of grain and hay. Wood was in ever-shorter supply, yet it remained tremendously important. It served as the primary source of heat for all homes and industries and as a basic raw material. Processed wood (charcoal) was the fuel that was mixed with iron ore in the blast furnace to produce pig iron (raw iron). The iron industry’s appetite for wood was enormous, and by 1740 the British iron industry was stagnating. As this early energy crisis grew worse, Britain looked toward its abundant and widely scattered reserves of coal as an alternative to its vanishing wood.

（節選自tpo 34-2 The Development of Steam Power）

Since the steam engine was fired by coal, the large mills did not need to be located by rivers, as had mills that used water-driven machines.

（節選自TPO26-1 Energy and the Industrial Revolution）

三、意義

（1）工業革命是資本主義發展史上的一個重要階段，實現了從傳統農業社會轉向現代工業社會的重要變革。

（2）工業革命創造了巨大生產力，使機器代替了手工勞動。

（3）工業革命是一場深刻的社會關系的變革。社會明顯地分裂為兩大對立的階級：工業資產階級和工業無產階級。

（4）率先完成工業革命的西方資本主義國家逐步確立起對世界的統治，世界形成了西方先進、東方落后的局面。

（5）工業革命同樣帶來消極影響，給社會帶來了工業污染。

四、托福中的工業革命

1. Changes in power

工業革命最大限度的發揮了水的能量，同時把工業從對流水的完全依賴中解放出來

Watt's steam engine soon showed what it could do. It liberated industry from dependence on running water. The engine eliminated water in the mines by driving efficient pumps, which made possible deeper and deeper mining. 

（節選自TPO 6-1 Powering the Industrial Revolution）

2. Changes in Cotton Production

棉紡織業由于機械化的轉變在棉花原料的進口和棉紡產品的銷售中得到突出的體現。在1760年到1850年間，原棉的進口量增長了230倍。英國棉紡產品的生產量增加了60倍，而棉布則成了英國最重要的產品。

The shift to increased mechanization in cotton production is apparent in the import of raw cotton and the sale of cotton goods. Between 1760 and 1850, the amount of raw cotton imported increased 230 times. Production of British cotton goods increased sixtyfold, and cotton cloth became Great Britain’s most important product, accounting for one-half of all exports. 

（節選自TPO26-1 Energy and the Industrial Revolution）

3. The Iron Industries

蒸汽動力技術革新的經濟后果是英國鋼鐵工業的繁榮。1740年，英國每年的鐵產量只有17000噸，但到了1844年，隨著焦炭冶煉的普及和Cort發明的影響，鐵產量增加到300萬噸。這真的是一個驚人的擴張。曾經稀缺和昂貴的鐵，現在變得便宜、基本、對經濟不可或缺。

The economic consequence of these technical innovations in steam power was a great boom in the British iron industry. In 1740 annual British iron production was only 17,000 tons, but by 1844, with the spread of coke smelting and the impact of Cort’s inventions, it had increased to 3,000,000 tons. This was a truly amazing expansion. Once scarce and expensive, iron became cheap, basic, and indispensable to the economy.

（節選自TP34-2 The Development of Steam Power）

4. Changes in press

提高印刷效率

Steam power did not merely spin cotton and roll iron; early in the new century, it also multiplied ten times over the amount of paper that a single worker could produce in a day. At the same time, operators of the first printing presses run by steam rather than by hand found it possible to produce a thousand pages in an hour rather than thirty. 

（節選自TPO 6-1 Powering the Industrial Revolution）

5. The Railroads

蒸汽機解決了貨船和收費高速公路解決不了的問題。

Steam also promised to eliminate a transportation problem not fully solved by either canal boats or turnpikes. Boats could carry heavy weights, but canals could not cross hilly terrain; turnpikes could cross the hills, but the roadbeds could not stand up under great weights. These problems needed still another solution, and the ingredients for it lay close at hand. … Another generation passed before inventors succeeded in combining these ingredients, by putting the engine on wheels and the wheels on the rails, so as to provide a machine to take the place of the horse. Thus the railroad age sprang from what had already happened in the eighteenth century. 

（節選自TPO 6-1 Powering the Industrial Revolution）

6. New factories and its labors

鐵路建設的就業機會吸引了許多習慣于季節性和臨時性就業的農村勞動力。當工程完成后，許多人轉移到其他建筑工作或城鎮的工廠工作，在那里他們成為擴大的工人階級的一部分。

Also, the availability of jobs in railway construction attracted many rural laborers accustomed to seasonal and temporary employment. When the work was completed, many moved to other construction jobs or to factory work in cities and towns, where they became part of an expanding working class. 

（節選自TPO26-1 Energy and the Industrial Revolution）