Today, as the world undergoes a profound period of technological change, far beyond what was experienced during the Industrial Revolution, there are some rhymes of history.

But its diffusion ended up permeating both, ultimately reshaping political parties before the founding of the Labour Party, representing the culmination of a long debate over the role of capital and rights of workers. Technological transformation took a long time to feed through to politics and policy. As it spread-first to Western Europe and the United States-it also left a much wider mark on the world. Institutions, industry and demography were all to change course and, ultimately, little about life in Britain was left untouched by the Revolution. They disrupted society, upending old structures, as well as building new ones.

The innovations that kickstarted the Industrial Revolution fostered modern democracy and led to the foundation of modern economies. Modernity, as we currently understand it, was conceived in England in the mid-eighteenth century.