1750 to 1900 evolution, was labeled blasphemous and, outside scientific circles, remains embroiled in controversy to this day In the 1870s biologists Louis Pasteur of France and Robert Koch of Germany proved that microorganisms—germs—were responsible for most human, animal, and plant diseases This rethinking of disease transmission revolutionized medical practice and gave new credibility to the emerging practice of sanitation Although the Industrial Revolution took place mostly in the West and helped it dominate other sections of the globe in the years between 1750 and 1900, it would be a mistake to see this burst of technological and scientific growth as an unchallenged success From its inception, the new factory system was strongly criticized for making humans interchangeable and also forcing them to adapt to ever-faster and more complex machines Opposition by a group of early challengers, the Luddites, reached its peak in England in 1812 when highly skilled workers, concentrated in the woolen industry, smashed installations of new machinery destined to implement the new factory system of production By 1867 in their work Das Kapital, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, both Germanborn, had developed a broad critique of the Industrial Revolution and the laissez-faire capitalism that underpinned it Engels was particularly qualified to evaluate the factory system; his father was an owner of a textile factory in Manchester, England A result of the Industrial Revolution less often mentioned during its 19th-century zenith was massive pollution created by industrial processes based on the unfettered burning of coal, soon to be supplemented with the combustion of petroleum products It is no wonder that U.S writer Edward Bellamy, in his 1887 utopian best seller and critique of industrialism, Looking Backward: 2000– 1887, recalled 1887 Boston as squalid and “malodorous,” and reeking of “fetid air” compared to the shiny, bright, and clean Boston of a postindustrial future SOCIAL AND CLASS RELATIONS This period of world history, 1750–1900, was an age of revolutions, both military and social Although social and class upheavals were most evident in the West, other major societies also experienced important changes that affected relationships between rulers and subjects, capitalists and workers, men, women, and children A process of globalization, spearheaded by imperialism and huge migrations within and between nations, created new political and social interactions The American Revolution helped bring an end to the phase of European colonialism that had begun with Spain’s 16th-century expansion into the New World It inspired independence movements in Central and South America and eventually led to autonomy for Canada In Europe, the republican ideas expounded in the United States’s revolution and 1789 Constitution helped spark political ferment that would produce liberalism, socialism, and communism in the 19th century The French Revolution marked the beginning of the end of monarchical power in France, Britain, and many other Western countries, although the final demise of this ancient system of hereditary rule did not occur until World War I As deference to royalty faded, some class barriers began to come down, especially in Europe between the 1830s and 1848, when failed revolutions in France and Germany ended in repression of dissident voices The impact of European imperialism across Asia from the Middle East to Japan would also inspire not only nationalistic awakening but also political and social revolutions that continued into the 20th century These political changes would have been unlikely without the almost simultaneous eruption, first in the West and later worldwide, of the Industrial Revolution This dramatic economic transformation hardened existing class identities but also held out promises of greater freedom, wealth, and power for people on lower and middle rungs of the social order This new way of financing and organizing the production of goods was theoretically justified by The Wealth of Nations, an antimercantilist, pro-capitalist economic philosophy articulated in 1776, the year of American independence, by Scottish thinker Adam Smith Aristocratic French observer Alexis de Tocqueville, who toured the United States in 1831, was astonished by the relative equality of masters and (white) servants, but worried that even in this new xxxi