# Historical context

The late 19th and the early 20th centuries were marked by significant economic, social and cultural transformations.

During the Second Industrial Revolution, advances in production technology and improvements in worker efficency (Taylorism) increased the productivity dramatically. Energy innovations (petroleum and electricity), new materials (chemicals, steel), advances in telecommunications (telegraph, radio, telephone), transport (plane, automobile) and new forms of business management led to a world economy controlled by some powers like Great Britain, United States, Germany, France and Japan, and capitalism became the dominant economic system.

Industrial expansion and population growth radically changed the face of cities under the dynamism of the prospering bourgeoisie.

In this Age of New Imperialism, the world was dominated by the industrialised countries that established vast empires mainly in Africa, but also in Asia and the Middle East.

But the rapid economic, technological and colonial changes increased the rivalry between powerful states and the escalating tensions led to the outbreak of World War One (1914-1918).

Production methodology named arter the US industrial engineer F.W. Taylor(1856-1915) that emphasized gaining maximun efficiency from both machine and worker.

> 1900 will mark the end of a century of prodigious artistic, scientific and economic development; it will also be the threshold of an era that, according to philosophers, will be one of greatness, and the realities of which will most certainly go far beyond anything our imagination has so far dreamed".

> Jules Roche

Quoted in the article "Plans for 1900 Exhibition" published 18 January 2012 in the Magazine du Grand Palais website.

French politician(1841-1923), Minister of Commerce and Industry.

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# Think About It

In this text Jules Roche, a French politician contemporary of the time we are working about, gave a proud and optimistic vision of both the 19th century that ended and the 20th century that was going to start.

- Do you agree with him? Justify your answer with some historical facts.

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