The Industrial Revolution工业革命

The Industrial Revolution — the transition to machine-based manufacturing that began in Britain around 1760 — was one of the most profound turning points in human history. For the first time, sustained economic growth outpaced population growth, and societies that had been overwhelmingly rural and agricultural began to urbanize and industrialize at an accelerating pace.工业革命——始于约1760年英国、向机器制造转型的过程——是人类历史上最深刻的转折点之一。人类历史上第一次，持续的经济增长超过了人口增长，原本以农村与农业为主的社会，开始以不断加快的步伐走向城市化与工业化。

Several factors converged in Britain: plentiful coal and iron, capital from commerce and colonial trade, a growing population, and a wave of practical inventions. The textile industry led the way as machines like the spinning jenny and the power loom multiplied output. Above all, the improved steam engine — refined by James Watt in the 1760s and 1770s — provided a powerful, reliable source of energy that no longer depended on wind, water, or muscle.多重因素在英国汇聚：丰富的煤炭与铁矿、来自商业与殖民贸易的资本、不断增长的人口，以及一波实用发明。纺织业率先突破，珍妮纺纱机、动力织机等机器使产量成倍增长。尤为关键的是经改良的蒸汽机——瓦特于18世纪六七十年代加以完善——提供了一种强大而可靠、不再依赖风力、水力或人畜之力的能源。

Production moved out of homes and workshops and into factories, where workers tended machines to the rhythm of the clock. Steam power was soon harnessed for transport: railways and steamships collapsed the time and cost of moving goods and people, knitting together national and eventually global markets. Iron, and later steel, became the skeleton of a new built environment of factories, bridges, and cities.生产从家庭与作坊转入工厂，工人们按照钟表的节奏照看机器。蒸汽动力很快被用于交通：铁路与蒸汽轮船大幅压缩了货物与人员流动的时间与成本，把国内市场乃至最终的全球市场连成一体。铁——以及后来的钢——成为工厂、桥梁与城市这一全新建成环境的骨架。

The human cost was steep. Early industrial cities were crowded, polluted, and unsanitary; factory labour, including that of women and children, was often long, dangerous, and poorly paid. These conditions spurred new social movements, trade unions, reform laws, and rival ideologies — including the socialism and communism articulated by thinkers such as Karl Marx, who wrote in direct response to industrial capitalism.其人力代价十分沉重。早期的工业城市拥挤、污染严重、卫生恶劣；包括妇女与儿童在内的工厂劳动，往往工时漫长、危险重重、报酬微薄。这些状况催生了新的社会运动、工会、改革立法与相互对立的意识形态——包括马克思等思想家所阐发的社会主义与共产主义，他们的著述正是对工业资本主义的直接回应。

A second wave of industrialization from the late 19th century — powered by electricity, chemicals, the internal combustion engine, and steel — spread industry across Europe, North America, Japan, and beyond. The Industrial Revolution raised living standards enormously over the long run, but it also concentrated global power, accelerated the use of fossil fuels, and set in motion the environmental changes we are still reckoning with today.自19世纪晚期兴起的第二次工业化浪潮——以电力、化学工业、内燃机与钢铁为动力——把工业推广到欧洲、北美、日本乃至更远的地方。工业革命从长远看极大提高了生活水平，但它也使全球权力更加集中，加速了化石燃料的使用，并启动了我们今天仍在应对的环境变迁。