Industrialization has knit the world together -not just in having wrought profound technological change, but also in the consequences, both economic and social, of that change. Industrialization allowed for the mechanization of Euro-American societies and the mass production of commodities and finished goods. At the same time, industrialization facilitated the destruction of local environments all over the world with pollution and resource depletion. Industrialization also provided the means by which Europeans, Americans, and the Japanese dominated cultures and societies around the globe through both formal and informal imperialism. As a result, the "progress" of the nineteenth century should be viewed globally, with truly global consequences that still challenge the planet and its peoples.
