Jacob & Joseph Reynolds

Mr. Martin
APWH GT 1st/2nd
23 Feb. 2016
Global Interactions- Industrialization and the European Moment in World History
(c. 1750 - c. 1914)
Europe's movement toward world power was guided and supported through its
new and unique consumer society that heavily influenced the industrial revolution during
the time period of 1750-1914. This new idea of a consumer powered market and culture
in Europe can be directly related to the overwhelming aspects of Europes work ethic and
competition. Europe intense work ethic was mainly due to their want to become powerful
in the competitive state of Western Europe and the many innovating countries that it
contained. These two factors simultaneously worked to promote this innovative market
based economy in a way that allowed the common man to control his own destiny.
The new consumer based society in Western Europe was constructed in order to
harness and cradle the industrial revolution, which had taken over Great Britain and other
parts of the Western world. In Harmut Berghoffs novel, Decoding Modern Consumer
Societies, he explains the process in which the consumer society rose and became
prominent in the western culture (Berghoff 3). He proclaims that this new idea of the
consumer market rose from the incoming and popular industrial revolution that innovated
much of the world's inventions and transformed society, as we know it. Overall the
industrial revolution is said to promote the new consumer society in Western Europe, but
the industrial revolution came from an earlier event known as the scientific revolution.
Although this event is out of the main time period (1750-1914), it can be supported that

Jacob & Joseph Reynolds

Mr. Martin
APWH GT 1st/2nd
23 Feb. 2016
the new scientific beliefs were the first major step toward the popular consumer society in
Western Europe due to its innovation and change that came with it. In John Brewer and
Roy Porters article, Consumption and the World of Goods, they speculate over the aspect
that this consumer based market system brought along and how these factors influenced
and affected the economy of Europe. One of their influences was the bringing of
competition between individuals markets involving similar consumer goods (Brewer,
Porter 2). This conflict astonishingly had a positive outlook for it promoted the second
influence that is work ethic. The process that is competition incorporates a constant rising
of work ethic that is what pushed the consumer society to be so successful through the
17th and 18th centuries. Work ethic is a unique system that is based on personal desire
and it has no limit or constraints that are not set by the individual. Competition is one
characteristic that drives and raises work ethic to new and innovated results that work to
please the consumer and the economy that he/she is benefiting.
In Shelley Baranowskis book, Tourism, Consumer Culture, and Identity in
Modern Europe and North America, she claims the idea of tourism being a product of the
wests unique consumer society and conveys the positive outlook tourism had
economically (Shelley Baranowski 1-2). From 1750-1914 tourism was an up and coming
innovation that allowed neighboring societies to witness and participate in other
civilizations cultures. With Europe's new consumer-run market system they were a
popular and trending tourist attraction that came with economic benefits. Tourism also
was a significant factor that played throughout the colonizing and developing of North

Jacob & Joseph Reynolds

Mr. Martin
APWH GT 1st/2nd
23 Feb. 2016
America through the idea of a new and controllable life that was granted by the consumer
society. This new life unconsciously involved work ethic and competition due to the
independent lifestyle that was being promoted. The consumer society and new culture of
western Europe was greatly helped through the new idea of free trade, described in Frank
Trentmanns novel, Free Trade Nation: Commerce, consumption, and Civils Society in
Modern Britain, the author explains the concept of free trade in an orderly society such as
England and how that affected other civilizations through trade (Trentmann 2-3). The
idea of free trade in England is based on the idea of freedom to exchange goods in
England for merchants and traders with incoming traders from other nations. This idea
greatly assisted the growth of the industrial revolutionary culture in the Western Europe
environment through its unlimited freedom of exchange, loosening the grip of the
government on local trade activities. With more trading liberty than in the Indian ocean
area with China and India, as well as new European products and their increasing
demand. Europe became a highly popular area for traders to make a good profit and
exchange with other traders, leading to the eventual shift of trade to Western Europe.
The western hemisphere was a thriving hegemony that so rapidly developed as a
world power due to its inspiring and innovative consumer society. This independent and
consumer based market system created two unique qualities that were essential to the
success of this consumer society and ultimately the western civilization. The two factors
being work ethic and competition, worked simultaneously to create an economic structure
that relied mostly on the consumer's own individual motivations and personal

Jacob & Joseph Reynolds

Mr. Martin
APWH GT 1st/2nd
23 Feb. 2016
achievements. Tourism and free trade both assisted the popularity and success of
Europes innovative market system. Tourism was an essential factor that increased the
spread and exposure of the consumer society to the rest of the world, similar to a form of
advertising. Free trade was the key to making the consumer society efficient and possible
due to the accessibility of local consumer trading. All of these factors contributed to the
overall dominance and superiority of the west in 1750-1914, shifting the balance of
power from the Middle East and Asian territories to the new colonial societies in Western
Europe and North America.