The Age Of Industrial Expansion

Before “growth” meant apps, metrics, and someone in a headset saying “scale,” industrial expansion meant coal, iron, steam, railways, factories, ships, smoke, and an alarming confidence that progress should be measured in chimneys.

The Age of Industrial Expansion by A. J. Holland looks at the great surge of industrial development that reshaped economies, towns, labour, trade, and daily life. This is the world where machines became bigger, cities became dirtier, fortunes became larger, and working hours became the sort of thing best not mentioned in polite company.

It is history with soot under its fingernails. Industry did not merely produce goods; it produced new classes, new cities, new problems, new wealth, and new ways of being exhausted. The modern world did not arrive gracefully. It clanked, hissed, rattled, and employed children.

There is a pleasing irony in the phrase “industrial expansion.” It sounds tidy, almost administrative. In practice, it meant entire landscapes transformed, rivers blackened, railways punched through the countryside, and society reorganised around the factory bell.

This good copy, as sold by Crappy Old Books, is ideal for readers of economic history, social history, industrial history, and anyone who enjoys being reminded that modern comfort was built by people who mostly did not get to enjoy it.

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