How did life change during the Industrial Revolution? Those who worked in factories, coal mines, and other work settings endured a lot of suffering. A country's factories grow and produce more goods ...

According to recent studies, the percentage of the population living in urban areas is directly related to income levels. Economies of scale are found in urban areas as well as richer market ...

Before the Industrial Revolution, making textiles was a slow process carried out by people using simple equipment, mostly in their own homes. By the end of the Industrial Revolution, the ...

"An epic exploration of possibilities. What If is a Webby Award-winning science web series that takes you on a journey through hypothetical worlds and possibilities, some in distant corners of the ...

There may be reasons to idolize the past — better music, cooler cars — but greater prosperity is not among them.

Will your job exist in the future, or will a robot have replaced you? In the long view of history, technological advancement unleashed by the Industrial Revolution has come to be seen as a net ...

The French inventor Jacques de Vaucanson is remembered for, among other things, producing three curious automata in the 18th century. A poster from the time advertised them all side by side: a ...

Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 2017, 400 pp., $35 (hardcover). Joel Mokyr’s A Culture of Growth: The Origins of the Modern Economy gives culture center stage in the rapid economic ...