Between 1750 and 1850, the first Industrial Revolution unfolded in Western Europe, transforming agrarian/handcraft economies to ones based on mechanized manufacture. Several factors prompted this revolution, including the growth of Europe's population and changes in agricultural practice-e.g. enclosure-that increased the supply of consumers and of cheap, mobile, and relatively healthy labor. Although other countries-e.g. France and the Netherlands-possessed considerable wealth, England enjoyed the best combination of labor, natural resources, infrastructure, governmental policy, and social values. Consequently, England industrialized first and more steadily during this period than other Western nations.

Other factors that spurred the Industrial Revolution include changes in technology and finance. Through trial and error, English textile workers introduced innovations into the processes of weaving and spinning. These new efficiencies encouraged the growth of the factory system that, in turn, specialized and urbanized labor. This process was hastened by the development of water and steam power. These innovations drove and were driven by new methods of iron and steel production. More efficient transportation and communication systems-e.g. the railroad and telegraph-enabled business to conduct commerce more cheaply over wider areas. Financial innovations pioneered by the British, including incorporation, encouraged lower-risk investment that, in turn, fueled the expansion of industry.

Along with these technological and economic developments came profound social changes. Urbanization advanced as factory towns grew into cities, in which housing patterns developed along class lines rather than according to any plan. Workers crowded into slums, living in conditions that provoked reformist outrage. In laissez-faire England the government was slow to address such problems, but in other countries-e.g. Germany-the state often intervened on behalf of workers. The middle and working classes grew larger and more diverse. The middle class ranged from wealthy bankers and industrialists to shop keepers; the working class included rural laborers and artisans (who often fought industrialization), miners, and urban factory workers. Despite the difficult and alienating conditions of industrial labor, the working classes found means of social interaction. They enjoyed family life (which also had economic benefits) and joined a variety of organizations for recreation and support, often provoking middle-class suspicion. Initially illegal, trade and labor unions emerged to channel growing worker discontent. The first to industrialize, England was also the first to confront the problems caused by that process. Between 1800 and 1850, legislation was passed that regulated work hours, especially for women and children, and addressed unemployment. Although early industrialization improved the general standard of living, its speed displaced and impoverished workers throughout Western Europe.

The Industrial Revolution hastened the modernization of Europe. As it undermined the old agrarian, aristocratic order, it encouraged urbanization, social mobility, secularization, and individualism. It also helped shift people's self-identification from locality to nation, and advanced contributed to the development of democracy.