First Published in 2005. In this book, the author seeks to bring out the causes which led to the coming of machinery and which made Great Britain the workshop of the world for a large part of the nineteenth century. Knowles especially stresses the world position of the United Kingdom during the past century owing to the developments of mechanical transport which were the inevitable outcome of the mass production by machines. This title also aims to account for the great change in public opinion after 1870, which led to the growth of State control, not merely in industry, but in commerce, agriculture, transport and imperial relations.