Industrial revolution marked a momentous turning point in human history. The Industrial Revolution created, first in Great Britain and then in continental Europe and North America, a growing and tremendously dynamic economic system. In the course of the 19th century, that system was extended across the face of the earth. The ultimate significance of the industrial revolution was that it allowed those regions of the world that industrialized in the 19th century to increase their wealth and power enormously in comparison to those that did not. As a result a gap between the industrializing regions (mainly Europe and North America) and the non-industrializing nations (mainly Africa, Asia and Latin America) opened up and grew steadily throughout the nineteenth century. Moreover, this pattern of uneven global development became industrialized, or built into the structure of the world economy. Thus we evolved a "lopsided world". Commerce between nations has always been a powerful stimulus to economic development. Never was this truer than in the 19th century, when world trade grew prodigiously. In 1913 the value of world trade was roughly 38 billion, or about 25 times what it had been in 1800, even though prices of both manufactured goods and raw materials were lower in 1913 than in 1800. In a general way, the enormous increase in interlocking world economy centered in and directed by Europe.
             Europe's economic breakthrough in a global perspective has revolutionary implications and consequences. In 1750 the average standard of living was no higher in Europe as a whole than in the rest of the world. In 1750 Europe was still a poor agricultural society. By 1970, however, the average person in the wealthiest countries had an income fully 25 times as great as that received by the average person in the poorest countries of Africa and Asia. It was industrialization that opened the gaps in average wealth and well-being among count...