Industrialisation

The break in the trend.

What changed

Coal, machinery and factories produced sustained growth in output per person for the first time in history, beginning in Britain and spreading unevenly.

Urban populations grew faster than sanitation could cope with.
Child labour, long hours and dangerous conditions drove the first labour movements.

Global effects

Industrial economies reorganised the rest of the world as suppliers of raw materials, a relationship that outlasted formal empire in many places.