We be Mega-3T; we are entering a Mega-4T.

[Bob Butler 54]

(07-31-2020, 04:33 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Some historians say the industrial age started in 1760. But the Watt steam engine wasn't even invented yet. I go by E. J. Hobsbawm who recounted lots of evidence in his book The Age of Revolution to show that the take-off was in the early 1780s. Of course, the take off could not have happened before the cultural and inventive changes of the previous 300+ years. Many historians use the rather-dependent-on-time terms of early modern for the period starting with the Renaissance and modern for the time since the Industrial and French revolutions. "Post-modern" applies easily to the Information Age.

The age boundaries are often defined by technology.  In this case, gunpowder weapons changed conflict, the printing press changed how information is kept and exchanged, and the steam engine changed how work is done.  Obviously, all three didn't happen at exactly the same time, but they all had a big place in redefining their respective fields.  The other factor is the style of government, which becomes in this case democracy.

The name Industrial gives the steam engine a sort of pride of place, but there is no doubt the others had a significant place too.  All four are definitely not going to happen at the same time.  Any given crisis can only change the culture so much.  It took many crises before the signature pattern of the Industrial Age clearly came forth, and even then you found many civilizations still having autocratic governments as the Information Age started with nukes and computers in World War II.

Come to think of it, all four ages - hunter gatherer, agricultural, industrial, and information - are named after the prime way of doing work. They are not named after how you handle information, your style of conflict, or style of government. I am not sure if that makes the style of work more important.