托福背景知识之工业革命（附真题例句）

历史上共有四次工业革命，分别指工业的机械化、电气化、自动化和信息化。今天所说的工业革命是第一次工业革命，即工业机械化。工业革命是托福考试常考话题，作为史实类内容，工业革命类文章内容基本一致，今天我们一起了解工业革命相关背景知识。 

OG：Artisans and Industrialization 

TPO 6-1: Powering the Industrial Revolution

TPO 18-1: Industrialization in the Netherlands and Scandinavia 

TPO 26-1: Energy and the Industrial Revolution

TPO 34-2:The Development of Steam Power

TPO 49-3: Background for the industrial Revolution

一、什么是工业革命？

工业革命起始时间：18世纪60年代至19时间中期（大概是1760年至1850年），是资本主义工业化的早期历程。

标志：瓦特改良了蒸汽机，从而开创了以机器代替人工的工业浪潮。第一次工业革命使用的机器都是以蒸汽或者水力作为动力驱动，工业革命以机器取代人力，是以大规模工厂化生产取代个体作坊手工生产的一场生产与科技革命。机器的发明及应用成为了这个时代的标志，因此历史学家称这个时代为“机器时代 “the Age of Machines”。英国是最早开始工业革命的国家。从英国向整个欧洲大陆传播，19世纪传至北美。一般认为，蒸汽机、煤炭、钢铁是促成工业革命技术加速发展的三项主要因素。工业革命都是以轻工业开始，向其他部门发展。

In the 1760s, James Watt perfected a separate condenser for the steam, so that the cylinder did not have to be cooled at every stroke; then he devised a way to make the piston turn a wheel and thus convert reciprocating (back and forth) motion into rotary motion. He thereby transformed an inefficient pump of limited use into a steam engine of a thousand uses. The final step came when steam was introduced into the cylinder to drive the piston backward as well as forward, thereby increasing the speed of the engine and cutting its fuel consumption.

Watt's steam engine soon showed what it could do. It liberated industry from dependence on running water.

（节选自TPO 6-1 Powering the Industrial Revolution）

二、兴起原因

18世纪时英国的手工业生产已经不能满足市场的需要，这就对作坊手工业提出了技术改革的要求。在这种趋势下，工业革命就首先在英国发展起来了

（1）政治前提：资产阶级在英国的统治日益加强。

（2）英国通过圈地运动，产生并聚集了大量劳动力，扩大了英国国内市场。

（3）海外贸易和殖民扩张，为英国积累原始资本，提供了广阔的海外市场。

（4）工厂手工劳动时积累的经验和生产技术的进步。

（5）随着市场需求的增大，手工生产已无法满足需求。

工业革命起源于英国。此时人力和畜力的实力有限；水力的局限性影响发展——工厂必须临河而建；传统的能源（如wood），已经不能满足生产需要了。靠人力将natural resources转化成energy极不容易。

By the eighteenth century, Britain was experiencing a severe shortage of energy. Because of the growth of population, most of the great forests of medieval Britain had long ago been replaced by fields of grain and hay. Wood was in ever-shorter supply, yet it remained tremendously important. It served as the primary source of heat for all homes and industries and as a basic raw material. Processed wood (charcoal) was the fuel that was mixed with iron ore in the blast furnace to produce pig iron (raw iron). The iron industry’s appetite for wood was enormous, and by 1740 the British iron industry was stagnating. As this early energy crisis grew worse, Britain looked toward its abundant and widely scattered reserves of coal as an alternative to its vanishing wood.

（节选自tpo 34-2 The Development of Steam Power）

Since the steam engine was fired by coal, the large mills did not need to be located by rivers, as had mills that used water-driven machines.

（节选自TPO26-1 Energy and the Industrial Revolution）

三、意义

（1）工业革命是资本主义发展史上的一个重要阶段，实现了从传统农业社会转向现代工业社会的重要变革。

（2）工业革命创造了巨大生产力，使机器代替了手工劳动。

（3）工业革命是一场深刻的社会关系的变革。社会明显地分裂为两大对立的阶级：工业资产阶级和工业无产阶级。

（4）率先完成工业革命的西方资本主义国家逐步确立起对世界的统治，世界形成了西方先进、东方落后的局面。

（5）工业革命同样带来消极影响，给社会带来了工业污染。

四、托福中的工业革命

1. Changes in power

工业革命最大限度的发挥了水的能量，同时把工业从对流水的完全依赖中解放出来

Watt's steam engine soon showed what it could do. It liberated industry from dependence on running water. The engine eliminated water in the mines by driving efficient pumps, which made possible deeper and deeper mining. 

（节选自TPO 6-1 Powering the Industrial Revolution）

2. Changes in Cotton Production

棉纺织业由于机械化的转变在棉花原料的进口和棉纺产品的销售中得到突出的体现。在1760年到1850年间，原棉的进口量增长了230倍。英国棉纺产品的生产量增加了60倍，而棉布则成了英国最重要的产品。

The shift to increased mechanization in cotton production is apparent in the import of raw cotton and the sale of cotton goods. Between 1760 and 1850, the amount of raw cotton imported increased 230 times. Production of British cotton goods increased sixtyfold, and cotton cloth became Great Britain’s most important product, accounting for one-half of all exports. 

（节选自TPO26-1 Energy and the Industrial Revolution）

3. The Iron Industries

蒸汽动力技术革新的经济后果是英国钢铁工业的繁荣。1740年，英国每年的铁产量只有17000吨，但到了1844年，随着焦炭冶炼的普及和Cort发明的影响，铁产量增加到300万吨。这真的是一个惊人的扩张。曾经稀缺和昂贵的铁，现在变得便宜、基本、对经济不可或缺。

The economic consequence of these technical innovations in steam power was a great boom in the British iron industry. In 1740 annual British iron production was only 17,000 tons, but by 1844, with the spread of coke smelting and the impact of Cort’s inventions, it had increased to 3,000,000 tons. This was a truly amazing expansion. Once scarce and expensive, iron became cheap, basic, and indispensable to the economy.

（节选自TP34-2 The Development of Steam Power）

4. Changes in press

提高印刷效率

Steam power did not merely spin cotton and roll iron; early in the new century, it also multiplied ten times over the amount of paper that a single worker could produce in a day. At the same time, operators of the first printing presses run by steam rather than by hand found it possible to produce a thousand pages in an hour rather than thirty. 

（节选自TPO 6-1 Powering the Industrial Revolution）

5. The Railroads

蒸汽机解决了货船和收费高速公路解决不了的问题。

Steam also promised to eliminate a transportation problem not fully solved by either canal boats or turnpikes. Boats could carry heavy weights, but canals could not cross hilly terrain; turnpikes could cross the hills, but the roadbeds could not stand up under great weights. These problems needed still another solution, and the ingredients for it lay close at hand. … Another generation passed before inventors succeeded in combining these ingredients, by putting the engine on wheels and the wheels on the rails, so as to provide a machine to take the place of the horse. Thus the railroad age sprang from what had already happened in the eighteenth century. 

（节选自TPO 6-1 Powering the Industrial Revolution）

6. New factories and its labors

铁路建设的就业机会吸引了许多习惯于季节性和临时性就业的农村劳动力。当工程完成后，许多人转移到其他建筑工作或城镇的工厂工作，在那里他们成为扩大的工人阶级的一部分。

Also, the availability of jobs in railway construction attracted many rural laborers accustomed to seasonal and temporary employment. When the work was completed, many moved to other construction jobs or to factory work in cities and towns, where they became part of an expanding working class. 

（节选自TPO26-1 Energy and the Industrial Revolution）