This essey titled "The Chief Features of the Industrial Revolution" and published in 1884 is written by the historian Arnold Toynbee. After a careful study of the Industrial Revolution he writes this text to give the reader an overview of the main changes caused by this process. He believes this process has brought positive and negative consequences, development and misery.

First of all the author makes an introduction of the topic giving information about the place and the time to which it refers: England of the 19^th century.

The second paragraph begins with a definition of the process that is going to analyze, then the historian focuses his attention on the growth of the Economic Science and the Socialism. He analyze these systems of tought, such as changes caused by the Industrial Revolution, by naming the four most famous English Economists of that period and their texts.

The third point discussed in the text is the general population growth and the decline in the agricoltural one. Here Toynbee gives many quantity information about the percentage in the different years.

The causes of this significant decline in rural population are explained in the following paragraph. They are identified such as the major changes in agricolture.

Then the author highlights also the positive consequences, the development in the farming and in the agricoltural society.

The 6^th and 7^th paragraphs deal with the industries, especially the textile and metallurgic ones. Here Toynbee appoints the machinery invented and the development of the means of communication occurred through the industrialization process.

The following passage gives quantity information about the distribution of wealth in the first fifty years of the 19^th century.

Then are presented other negative consequences of the Industrial Revolution like the birth of a new social class formed by the farmers. The development of the capitalism is opposed to the misery of the working people.

At the end of the essey, as a conclusion, the author confirm his thesis.

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 demonstrathe 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.