Arnold Toynbee's essey deals with The Chief Features of the Industrial Revolution. It opens with an introduction where the revolution is defined as an historical process. Also its economic and social consequences are illustrated at a global level.

The esseyist goes on developing an argumentationin order to explain it mainly consisted in the substitution of competition "for the medieval regulations which had previously controlled the production and distribution of wealth". The consequences of the process meant the birth of two differend sysrem of thought: Economic Science and Socialism, that are extremely opposite.

After that he gives some quantity information about the first fact about the Industrial Revolution that draws our attention: the growth of the whole population. He also focuses his attention on the positive decline of the rural one. This demographic change is mainly due to the changes in agricolture like the distruction of the common-field system of cultivation, the enclosures and the consolidation of the big farms.

This consolidation isn't only a bad consequence for the rural population. In the fifth paragraph the author gives a good immagine of the scientific developement saying that the period of the Industrial Revolution is the period in which the agriculture develops more.

The next point the author deals with is the manifactures. He use a large part of the text to explain the main changes in the industry and how the mechanical system of work has change the domestic life and system of production. It led from the independence to the dependence. Then he lists the new inventions in tecnology like the spinning-jenny or the water-frame which have radically altered the character of the cotton manufacture.

Focusing on the topic of the industry Toynbee gives to the iron industry a great importance for the communication. The author explains how the means of communication develops in the 19th century through the creation of canals, roads and mostly railways which were the main means of transport at the end of the century.

The development in the means of communication led to a change in the steadiness of the producion. This is caused by the regular recurrence of periods of over-production and of depression. The esseyist analizes in detail the distribution of the wealth in England giving many quantity information and then examines what this distribution caused.

The most important fact was the division between the farmers and the labourers, that led to the birth of a new social class formed by the farmers only and the development of the capitalism opposed to the misery of the working people.

At the end of the essey the author clarifie and confirm his thesis adding another personal comment.

In my opinion in this text the English historian has presented the process of industrialization analyzing in detail the consequences of the Industrial Revolution and has argued his thesis clearly. He has demonstrates that the development in the industry and the agricolture can be something positive for the economy of the state but it is also dangerous for worker and society, so the production of wealh does not imply well-being.