Until the end of the 1700s, the economies of all the world’s major civilizations were principally agriculture, and their societies were rural. Most people in most nations lived in the countryside and worked at growing food and tending livestock. Over the course of centuries, trade and commerce, as well as arts and crafts, had become increasingly important as sectors of economies throughout the world. Compared to agriculture, however, they remained relatively minor.

In Europe, this state of affairs changed dramatically during the end of the 1700s and the first half of the 1800s. The mass production of goods by means of machine power—industrialization—became a key part of Western economies. The importance of trade and commerce skyrocketed, and a growing number of people moved from rural areas to the city. The economic system known as capitalism was born. Taken together, these phenomena are part of what is commonly known as the Industrial Revolution.

Much of the capital needed to set the Industrial Revolution in motion arrived from lucrative investments in overseas plantations. Britain, the epicenter of industrialization, had become wealthy through the shipment of African slaves to the West Indies, and the import of sugar from those islands. The slave trade and the use of slave labor, although occurring thousands of miles away, was integral to Britain’s development.

After looking through the recommended lecture and assigned readings on the Background page and other research from the Internet, write a 3 page paper on the following topic:

• Describe the Industrial Revolution and the new forms of economic activity it created, including mass production, and mass consumption. How was this connected to slavery?

In the Module 1 Case Assignment, you are expected to:

• Describe the purpose of the paper and conclusion.
• Answer the Case Assignment questions clearly and provide necessary details.
• Provide a quality argument; that is, use good sentence structure, and avoid run-on sentences and spelling and grammar errors.
• Provide citations to support your argument and references on a separate page. Please use APA format to provide citations and references: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/ ; also, helpful information can be found in the Student Guide to Writing a High-Quality Academic Paper: http://support.trident.edu/files/Well-Written-Paper.pdf].
• Answer all the Case Assignment questions in an essay format instead of point format. Please do not type questions in the paper.