青岛物流分拨交易中心:拜托各位 找一篇有关历史的英语短文

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这篇文章是关于 Industrial Revolution 产业革命，工业革命

The Industrial Revolution began in the Midlands area of England and spread throughout England and into continental Europe and the northern United States in the 19th century. Before the improvements made to the pre-existing steam engine by James Watt and others, all manufacturing had to rely for power on wind or water mills or muscle power produced by animals or humans. But with the ability to translate the potential energy of steam into mechanical force, a factory could be built away from streams and rivers, and many tasks that had been done by hand in the past could be mechanized. If, for example, a lumber mill had been limited in the number of logs it could cut in a day due to the amount of water and pressure available to turn the wheels, the steam engine eliminated that dependence. Grain mills, thread and clothing mills, and wind driven water pumps could all be converted to steam power as well.

Shortly after the steam engine was developed, a steam locomotive called The Rocket was invented by George Stephenson, and the first steam-powered ship was invented by Robert Fulton. These inventions, and the fact that machines were not taxed as much as people, caused large social upheavals, as small mills and cottage industries that depended on a stream or a group of people putting energy into a product could not compete with the energy derived from steam. With locomotives and steamships, goods could now be transferred very quickly across a country or ocean, and within a reasonably predictable time, since the steam plants provided consistent power, unlike transportation relying on wind or animal power.

One question that has been of active interest to historians is why the Industrial Revolution occurred in Europe and not in other parts of the world, particularly China. Numerous factors have been suggested including ecology, government, and culture. Benjamin Elman argues that China was in a high level equilibrium trap in which the non-industrial methods were efficient enough to prevent use of industrial methods with high capital costs. Kenneth Pommeranz in the Great Diveregence argues that Europe and China were remarkably similar in 1700 and that the crucial differences which created the Industrial Revolution in Europe were sources of coal near manufacturing centers and raw materials such as food and wood from the New World which allowed Europe to economically expand in a way that China could not.

The transition to industrialisation was not wholly smooth, for in England the Luddites - workers who saw their livelihoods threatened - protested against the process and sometimes sabotaged factories.

Industrialisation also led to the creation of the factory, and was largely responsible for the rise of the modern city, as workers migrated into the cities in search of employment in the factories.

http://artzia.com/History/Ideas/Industrial_Revolution/

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the Second World War

While the Second World War produced numerous acts of self-sacrifice, it also made many people rich. The criminal activities of the underworld that extended from the civilian population right through to the armed forces constitute one of the great untold stories of the war. The Blitz of 1940 may have made a nation of heroes, but in the shadows the shelter gangs and looters prowled. Illegal food supplies threatened the nation's health - a consignment of black-market sausages in Hackney contained tuberculosis meat, while the industrial alcohol or 'hooch' served in West End clubs could produce blindness and brain damage. The scale of theft in the army was also colossal. Donald Thomas draws on extensive archive material to tell the extraordinary and frequently ludicrous story of these less-than-heroic Britons. The facts he uncovers are often so preposterous that in a novel they would seem unbelievable. (Donald Thomas, John Murray, ISBN 0 7195 5732 1, £20.00)

While the Second World War produced numerous acts of self-sacrifice, it also made many people rich. The criminal activities of the underworld that extended from the civilian population right through to the armed forces constitute one of the great untold stories of the war. The Blitz of 1940 may have made a nation of heroes, but in the shadows the shelter gangs and looters prowled. Illegal food supplies threatened the nation's health - a consignment of black-market sausages in Hackney contained tuberculosis meat, while the industrial alcohol or 'hooch' served in West End clubs could produce blindness and brain damage. The scale of theft in the army was also colossal. Donald Thomas draws on extensive archive material to tell the extraordinary and frequently ludicrous story of these less-than-heroic Britons. The facts he uncovers are often so preposterous that in a novel they would seem unbelievable. (Donald Thomas, John Murray, ISBN 0 7195 5732 1, £20.00)