ALTHOUGH historians may argue until the end ■ , , )1 time

as to where the Neolithic Revolu- tion started, we know that the Industrial Revolu- tion 'took off' in Britain in the late eighteenth Century; forged ahead for the best part of the nineteenth century, and spluttered and fizzled and stumbled into the twentieth, yet never quite came t° a full stop. Its racing days, however, were over. The slowing-down was due to complex factors, economic, social and historical: and, as so many of our own difficulties stem from it, the whole Process demands a thorough historical study, and a study which should properly involve the assis- t:ttice of half a dozen or more academic dis- ciplines. Yet no university, old, new, or in the has an institute devoted to industrial 5°Ciety, its history and problems. Quaint! It would seem that we hesitate to study ourselves Or our society in depth in their immediate his- torical context, even though the world has gone or is going our way and our problems are now the world's. These books,' good as they are, Underline the need for a larger, more co- e'llerative approach to the nature of the Indus- trial Revolution. ,Phe Rise of Industrial Society, by Professor `heekland, is the most ambitious, and in its way the most impressive, of these four books.* He uleitIns by describing the economic forces and -nological changes which brought about rapid industrial growth and then analyses the effect Of 'kb growth on the social structure of classes, on political life and, finally, on the way men of the time came to regard their world, together \'ith their speculations about what could, or could hot, be controlled. Professor Checkland is not a Master of the compelling phrase and his literary dexterity is almost negligible, which is a pity, for these faults will restrict his audience, and his with book, full of valuable material and often sharp perceptive in its ideas, demands a large I rang; Public. The Rise of Industrial Society is de- patorri higne d, as it should be, as a great work, yet the itY-tleivk Performance does not live up to its promise. hrong" due. i ' br. Hobsbawm has long been a protagonist °L the view that the Industrial Revolution, in its e, early e Working stages, depressed the standard of living of

ter hr.:, detailed class. Most general readers will find :tailed arguments arid going and will turn

intew a- with relief to the other highly original and deeply Ice d Interesting essays in this book—two of which are 'qui( I quite exceptionally good. Dr. Hobsbawm's dis- ,ed tho

cession of the reasons for, and the efficacy of,

office"

'"

. achine-breaking destroys once and for all the ( vie- actw(Which I once held) that Luddism was an of sheer despair. Dr. Hobsbawm makes a ca,„

for machine-breaking as an effective means of direct industrial action, and the only effective one

open to the working man before the de- ..„,'vpment of trade unions. His essay on the Tramping Artisan' is equally good—we should 1.Rxpect this, for Dr. Hobsbawm is one of the l'ovliest economic historians writing today—radi- 41, of course, but as full of insight as of scholar- gliP and at his best, he can write with splendid fame`-ems The most outstanding quality of these a better'

'HE RISE OF, INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY IN ENGLAND,

LbSt 1!5-1885. By S. G. Checkland. (Longmans, 35s.) recor 1-fto 3OURING MEN. By E. Hobsbawm. (Weiden- ht leod tit and Nicolson, 55s.) "-NGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, 1815-1914. Y1)avid (Cape, 30s.)it stO I---NGLAND Thomson. IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, 1914-1963.

David Thomson. (Cape, 30s.)

ipearc ;Driest the!'

positi rig to M.Ne genial rature, ,e,

: life

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essays is their intellectual liveliness. There is no rest for the dull here. Fine minds at work on history are rare enough.

Dr. Thomson set himself a harder task than either Professor Checkland or Dr. Hobsbawm, both in his early book, now reprinted and re- vised, and his new study of the twentieth cen- tury. To encompass so much history in so short a space calls for the most skilful selection and compression; and everyone will have his own ideas on what should be dealt with extensively or omitted. Dr. Thomson gives full weight to politics and to economic life and 1, for one, par- ticularly in the twentieth-century volume, would have welcomed more on the development of science and its impact on society.

After reading all four books, one is still left with a sense of wonder,.of incomprehension, and of pity. Wonder—at what has been accomp- lished in the last 150 years. It is so easy to accept the miraculous changes that man has brought about in material prosperity, yet reject the pro- cess by which they are achieved as vile, sordid or inimical to the truth of life; indeed, far too easy to turn from these marvels and sink into nostalgia for a golden past- that never was—a past peopled with gracious artist-craftsmen or illiterate peasants with a profound knowledge of the springs of life, forgetting, of course, that, for the human animal, a peasant's life is as arti- ficial as a factory worker's or that many a machine requires craftsmanship as delicate as a Chippendale chair. We have come to accept so blandly industrial society that we forget what it has saved most of us from—a very brief life of endless toil in conditions of dirt, disease and semi-hunger. And the debate on the standard of living between 1815 and 1850 is essentially irre- levant to what should be the main thesis: namely, that industrialisation gave both opportunity and hope to labouring men and women, if not for themselves, then for their children. It has pro- vided a way, as no other organisation of society has, for millions of men to escape the bestial conditions which have been the usual lot of man- kind. This fact should not, however, blind us to the vast human suffering that transition to an

industrial society caused: the grinding poverty, the ruthless exploitation and the utter depriva-

tion that often accompanied it. Like rich men,

rich societies forget and lose their sense of pity. Professor Checkland deals admirably with the impact of industrialisation both on the poor and the middle and the upper classes and the almost insuperable problems it created in terms of dirt, disease and poverty at a time when the leaders of society were obstinately attached to a policy

of laissez-faire. He is aware of man's cruelty, but not always of his dilemmas. He misses some

of the deeper social implications that arose out of a harsh conflict of interests that led to deep divisions in English life.

In the nineteenth century Britain was an,em- pire as well as a rapidly industrialising society, and much of its social effort, particularly amongst

the middle and upper classes, was directed to- wards commercial rather than industrial ex-

ploitation and also towards providing an dlite of governors for its colonies. Industry was never as fashionable as empire, and its needs were often neglected. And Professor Checkland might profit- ably have discussed this confusion of attitude which lies at the heart of Victorian society and

The Rich Forget

By J. H. PLUMB which may have been partly responsible for the growing technological weakness of Britain in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The social and political activity of the aristocracy, the pres- sure of land-ownership as a symbol of status, the stranglehold of the landed classes on the pro-