The Industrial Revolution is a period in the late 18th and early 19th centuries when major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, and transportation have a profound effect on the socioeconomic and cultural conditions in Britain.

The changes subsequently spread throughout Europe and North America and eventually the world, a process that continues as industrialization.

The onset of the Industrial Revolution marks a major turning point in human society; almost every aspect of daily life is eventually influenced in some way.

In the later part of the 1700s, the manual labor-based economy of some parts of Great Britain begins to be replaced by one dominated by the manufacture by machinery.

It starts with the mechanization of the textile industries, the development of iron-making techniques and the increased use of refined coal.

Trade expansion is enabled by the introduction of canals, improved roads and railways.

The introduction of steam power (fueled primarily by coal) and powered machinery (mainly in textile manufacturing) underpins the dramatic increases in production capacity.

The development of all-metal machine tools in the first two decades of the 19th century facilitates the manufacture of more production machines for manufacturing in other industries.

The effects spread throughout Western Europe and North America during the 19th century, eventually affecting most of the world.

The impact of this change on society is enormous.

The First Industrial Revolution, which begins in the eighteenth century, merges into the Second Industrial Revolution around 1850, when technological and economic progress gain momentum with the development of steam-powered ships, railways, and later in the nineteenth century with the internal combustion engine and electrical power generation.The period of time covered by the Industrial Revolution varies with different historians.

Eric Hobsbawm held that it 'broke out' in the 1780s and was not fully felt until the 1830s or 1840s, while T. S. Ashton held that it occurred roughly between 1760 and 1830.

Some twentieth century historians such as John Clapham and Nicholas Crafts have argued that the process of economic and social change took place gradually and the term revolution is not a true description of what took place.

This is still a subject of debate among historians.