Western Civ Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Western Civ - Essay Example Firstly, at the end of the British feudalism, after the 17th Century English Civil war, scientific knowledge and entrepreneurial skills quickly started growing in Britain creating an onset of the industrial revolution. Many people wanted things to change for the better. They wanted to improve efficiency and quality of activities they were doing. According to Pearson Education (2010), these people wanted improved transport; manufactured cloth to match with growing demographic needs; maximize agricultural production; agricultural produce to be preserved in the best way; trade to expand beyond the frontiers and others. As such, many people with scientific and entrepreneur skills engaged in heavy technological advancement. Scientists started inventing various technologies such as improved textile machines and the steam engine whilst entrepreneurial capitalists supported the inventions with funding. Such technologies later improved transportation, cloth manufacturing and agricultural prod uction. While this was happening in Britain, other countries had not yet started. Secondly, Britain had a very big advantage over the other countries on natural resources. She had a very big base of natural resources such as iron, copper, coal, lead, tin, limestone and water power. Such minerals were abundant in places such as the English Midlands, South Wales and Scottish Lowlands. Pearson Education (2010) agrees that advancement in technology, agriculture and abundant labor made it easy for Britain to extract the natural resources and use them to expand manufacturing. On the other hand, other countries had limited natural resources; and it was difficult to extract them because of several reasons such as insufficient capital, poor political systems and lack of labor. Such a situation gave Britain an opportunity to lead in industrial revolution. Thirdly, it should also be noted that aristocracy in continental Europe helped to