The Industrial Revolution was a worldwide transition which led to quick industrialisation starting off in Britain in the late 1700s and early 1800s, before expanding to other areas such as Asia and the Americas. This essay aims to explore how the Industrial Revolution affected the textile industry in India and Iran as a result of the amalgamation of the webs into a single cosmopolitan web, where communication, new inventions and technology were easily shared within different aspects of the world. During the course of this essay, the focus will be on the emergence of the Industrial Revolution and the discovery of fossil fuels as a cheap energy source, and how this affected the British position in the textile industry. Furthermore, factors affecting …show more content…
Before the end of the 17th century, only as small fraction of the earth’s available energy was used by the earth’s inhabitants (McNeil and McNeil 230). Further on, McNeil and McNeil state that as a result of the Industrial Revolution and the use of fossil fuels, the British were now able to produce energy in such a sufficient way that Britain was now on its way to become the first high-energy society in the world (231). Before the Industrial Revolution, the predominantly driving force for production was man power, and the sole purpose of production was usually to cover the demands of the producers themselves. The Industrial Revolution introduced mechanical power in forms of steam machines, the spinning jenny (a spinning frame), and other machines which could produce large quantities of goods within a short period of time. In other words, the Industrial Revolution and the British textile invasion led to a competition with weavers and spinners around the world which they could not match. (McNeill and McNeill …show more content…
An important example of how the textile industry was before the Industrial Revolution and the British textile invasion, is Iran before the 1820s. Before the 1820s, Iran’s cotton and silk industries were flourishing to an extent to where they could provide a living for thousands of spinners and weavers. However, as soon as British textile products started to enter the Iranian market after the 1820s they quickly became more popular and appealing than the Iranian textile products. The British cotton cloth was not only of better quality, it was also cheaper due to the fact that British factories were able to produce large quantities of goods which resulted in cheaper products. Ultimately, British products became so popular there that Iran started exporting raw silk and cotton instead of exporting silk and cotton cloth. (McNeil and McNeil 236). Street urchins were singing: “Everyone who earned his bread by weaving would be better off dead than living” (Floor 119). However, unlike India which was under British domination, the Irani government tried to protect their spinners and weavers by trying to ban foreign-made cloth, and instead demand the Irani population to wear Iranian fabric (McNeil and McNeil 237). Unfortunately, these measures did not help prevent the flourishing of the British