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

工業(yè)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(yè)化的早期歷程。

標志：瓦特改良了蒸汽機，從而開創(chuàng)了以機器代替人工的工業(yè)浪潮。第一次工業(yè)革命使用的機器都是以蒸汽或者水力作為動力驅(qū)動，工業(yè)革命以機器取代人力，是以大規(guī)模工廠化生產(chǎn)取代個體作坊手工生產(chǎn)的一場生產(chǎn)與科技革命。機器的發(fā)明及應(yīng)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(yè)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(yè)革命技術(shù)加速發(fā)展的三項主要因素。工業(yè)革命都是以輕工業(yè)開始，向其他部門發(fā)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(jié)選自TPO 6-1 Powering the Industrial Revolution）

二、興起原因

18世紀時英國的手工業(yè)生產(chǎn)已經(jīng)不能滿足市場的需要，這就對作坊手工業(yè)提出了技術(shù)改革的要求。在這種趨勢下，工業(yè)革命就首先在英國發(fā)展起來了

（1）政治前提：資產(chǎn)階級在英國的統(tǒng)治日益加強。

（2）英國通過圈地運動，產(chǎn)生并聚集了大量勞動力，擴大了英國國內(nèi)市場。

（3）海外貿(mào)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(jīng)驗和生產(chǎn)技術(shù)的進步。

（5）隨著市場需求的增大，手工生產(chǎn)已無法滿足需求。

工業(yè)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(fā)展——工廠必須臨河而建；傳統(tǒng)的能源（如wood），已經(jīng)不能滿足生產(chǎn)需要了。靠人力將natural resources轉(zhuǎn)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 Because of the growth of population, most of the great forests of medieval Britain had long ago been replaced by fields of grain and hay.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(jié)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(jié)選自TPO26-1 Energy and the Industrial Revolution）

三、意義

（1）工業(yè)革命是資本主義發(fā)展史上的一個重要階段，實現(xiàn)了從傳統(tǒng)農(nóng)業(yè)社會轉(zhuǎn)向現(xiàn)代工業(yè)社會的重要變革。

（2）工業(yè)革命創(chuàng)造了巨大生產(chǎn)力，使機器代替了手工勞動。

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

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

（5）工業(yè)革命同樣帶來消極影響，給社會帶來了工業(yè)污染。

四、托福中的工業(yè)革命

1. Changes in power

工業(yè)革命最大限度的發(fā)揮了水的能量，同時把工業(yè)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(jié)選自TPO 6-1 Powering the Industrial Revolution）

2. Changes in Cotton Production

棉紡織業(yè)由于機械化的轉(zhuǎn)變在棉花原料的進口和棉紡產(chǎn)品的銷售中得到突出的體現(xiàn)。在1760年到1850年間，原棉的進口量增長了230倍。英國棉紡產(chǎn)品的生產(chǎn)量增加了60倍，而棉布則成了英國最重要的產(chǎn)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(jié)選自TPO26-1 Energy and the Industrial Revolution）

3. The Iron Industries

蒸汽動力技術(shù)革新的經(jīng)濟后果是英國鋼鐵工業(yè)的繁榮。1740年，英國每年的鐵產(chǎn)量只有17000噸，但到了1844年，隨著焦炭冶煉的普及和Cort發(fā)明的影響，鐵產(chǎn)量增加到300萬噸。這真的是一個驚人的擴張。曾經(jīng)稀缺和昂貴的鐵，現(xiàn)在變得便宜、基本、對經(jīng)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(jié)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(jié)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(jié)選自TPO 6-1 Powering the Industrial Revolution）

6. New factories and its labors

鐵路建設(shè)的就業(yè)機會吸引了許多習慣于季節(jié)性和臨時性就業(yè)的農(nóng)村勞動力。當工程完成后，許多人轉(zhuǎn)移到其他建筑工作或城鎮(zhèn)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(jié)選自TPO26-1 Energy and the Industrial Revolution）