Orange Coast College Industrial Revolution in Britain Questions

This is a BBC episode from one of my favorite British historians. Note, he is VERY British, and will talk about this subject of the Industrial Revolution in a very pro-Brit way (glory to the Empire kind of stuff). There is a bit of an eye-rolling scene where he is in a French cafe discussing why the French were the last to industrialize, which seemed a bit rude to me, but, I suppose it helps to get a feeling of the English spirit when it comes to their history.

The thing is, this is a really good episode that gets into the background of why the Industrial Revolution started in Britain (which will propel the country into it’s greatest empire era) and what happened over time to the class systems both in England and in the colonies.

See the Focus Questions below: Please copy and paste them to your favorite word processor to answer, and then copy and paste those q’s & a’s back to the text-field in this assignment!

Documentary (can be viewed from Youtube (Links to an external site.), but if that doesn’t work, there is a copy in a Google Drive Here (Links to an external site.) as well!

Focus Questions:

1. What had historically been the main source of energy in Britain?
2. Why was Britain geographically lucky when it came to a new source of
fuel?
3. Why was Britain different than the rest of Europe when it came to
scientific inventions?
4. Explain the advantages of the steam engine:
5. Why could the Revolution not have started in France? (this is a long
answer!)
6. What was the role of the Royal Navy when it came to trade and the
economy?
7. What goods did England get from its colonies throughout the world?
8. How did British economic policies impact the slave trade?
9. How many slaves did the British transport across the Atlantic?
10.By the end of the 18th century, what worth of goods was Britain
exporting?
11.How did James Wedgewood help invent product marketing?