In novels such as George Orwell's 1984, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, and Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, a view of human nature is attacked as potentially creating the philosophical basis of societies more oppressive and authoritarian than any we have even seen.

Early 18th century british industries were generally small scale and relatively unsophisticated. most textile production, for example, was centred on small workshops or in the homes of spinners, weavers and dyers: a literal ‘cottage industry’ that involved thousands of individual manufacturers. such small-scale production was also a feature of most other industries, with different regions specialising in different products: metal production in the midlands, for example, and coal mining in the north-east.two illustrations of 18t