INDUSTRIAL AND POST-INDUSTRIAL

REVOLUTIONS
CULTURAL AND SOCIOPOLITICAL EVOLUTION
 LEARNING OBJECTIVES

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

 Describe the difference between preindustrial, industrial, and
postindustrial societies
 Understand the role of environment on preindustrial
societies
 Understand how technology impacts societal development
CULTURAL AND SOCIOPOLITICAL EVOLUTION

PREINDUSTRIAL INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY POSTINDUSTRIAL

SOCIETIES SOCIETY
PREINDUSTRIAL SOCIETIES
• Hunter-Gatherer
• Pastoral
• Horticultural
• Agricultural
• Feudal
 INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY

HISTORY

CHANGES

IMPACTS
INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY:
ORIGIN

 Europe (18th Century)

 Steam engine by James Watt
and Matthew Boulton first
appeared in 1872
 Steam power began appearing
everywhere.
INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY:
THE CHANGES

 people turned to textile mills

 mechanical seeders and
threshing machines
 Availability of paper and glass
 accessibility of education and
health care
 Gas lights
INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY:
POSITIVE IMPACTS

 increased productivity
 new generation became less preoccupied
 achieving upward mobility for themselves
 as capitalism increased, so did social
mobility
 sociology was born
INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY:
NEGATIVE IMPACTS

 long-established traditions of the

agricultural eras did not apply to life
 people were moving to new
environments
 overcrowding, and poverty
 power moved from the hands of the
aristocracy and “old money” to
business-savvy newcomers who
amassed fortunes in their lifetimes
Postindustrial
Society
• INFORMATION
SOCIETIES

• DEVELOPMENTS

• IMPACTS
Postindustrial Society

• rooted in the production of

material goods
• based on the production of
information and services
• Innovations in transportation and
communication create a “global
village” but also result in increased
competition and conflict.
Postindustrial Society

 power lies with those in charge of

storing and distributing information

 employed as sellers of services—

software programmers or business
consultants—instead of producers of
goods
 TYPES OF SOCIETIES

Society Energy/Technology

Hunting/Gathering Fire; crude weapons

Horticultural/Pastoral Fire; hand tools for planting

Fire; animal power for plowing;
Agrarian
irrigation systems
 TYPES OF SOCIETIES

Society Energy/Technology

Industrial Steam, electricity, gasoline power

Electricity, gasoline power, nuclear

Post industrial
energy; information technologies
 TYPES OF SOCIETIES

Society Examples
Eskimo; Pygmies of Central Africa;
Hunting/Gathering
Aborigines of Australia

Horticultural/ Societies of the Fertile Crescent

Pastoral (now Iraq); Laplanders; Maasai
Egypt under the pharaohs;
Agrarian Medieval Europe; ancient China
and India
 TYPES OF SOCIETIES

Society Examples
China; Brazil; Eastern European
Industrial nations; Argentina; Philippines; South
Korea
United States; most nations of Western
Post industrial
Europe; Japan
 SUMMARY

Societies are classified according to their development and use of

technology. For most of human history, people lived in preindustrial
societies characterized by limited technology and low production of
goods. After the Industrial Revolution, many societies based their
economies around mechanized labor, leading to greater profits and a
trend toward greater social mobility. At the turn of the new millennium, a
new type of society emerged. This postindustrial, or information, society
is built on digital technology and nonmaterial goods.

Uniformitarianism states that……

the present is the key to the past

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