The social significance of the industrial revolution

The environment of man has been profoundly changed in the recent past. Two centuries ago the world was much different from the one which we see today. The modern urban centers were not known, and social relationships were very simple in nature. "During the Middle Ages the land was worked primarily for the support of the immediate group that lived upon it. The typical community of the Middle Ages was the self-sufficient village."1 August Jessup, an English essayist, gives us a picture of the living conditions during the thirteenth century. About the same conditions existed up to the time of the Industrial Revolution.