工业革命为什么首先在英国发生

Why did the Industrial Revolution First Occur in Britain?

工业革命是资本主义发展史上的重大转折,是由工场手工业向以工厂制为基础的大机器工业生产的重大飞跃,其主要表现是大机器工业代替手工业,机器工厂代替手工工场。它是生产领域里的一场大变革,又是社会关系方面的一场革命。英国是工业革命发生最早的国家,也是工业革命及其后果表现最典型的国家。为什么工业革命首先在英国发生呢?本文拟从社会环境、英国君主立宪制的确立、优越的自然条件、资本原始积累的完成、对外贸易、生产技术已经成熟、自然科学的进步等七个方面做综合探讨。

Industrial Revolution was a significant transition in the capitalism history. It was an important breakthrough from handicraft production at workshop to big machine industrial production at factory. Its main characteristics were that the big machine industry replaced the handicraft industry and the machine factory replaced the manual workshop. It caused a great transformation in production field and also a revolution in social relationship. Britain was the first country that Industrial Revolution occurred and a country that Industrial Revolution and its consequence completely displayed their characters. Why did the Industrial Revolution first occur in Britain？ This paper synthetically analyzes the reasons from the following seven aspects： social environment, the establishment of constitutional monarchy, superior natural condition, accomplishment of primitive accumulation, foreign trade, mature productive technology and progress of natural science.