Between 1870 and 1900 Great Britain expanded to occupy an area of four million square miles. Britain's empire pioneered the Industrial Revolution, which provided the means for their expansion, such as the Gatling Gun, the railway, and the steamship. However expansion meant trouble abroad, and Britain became entangled in the South African War. Great Britains' eminence was ending, the inventor and exporter that created the modern world, fell behind competing nations, as both Germany and the United States surpassed it in industrial production.

Socially, Great Britain produced much fewer educated people than either Europe or the United States. Their middle class made money so easily in the first years of the Industrial Revolution that they simply did not work as hard as their rivals in other countries. The originators of the revolution saw little need to improve their first generation technologies until it was too late.

Opposing the economic decline...