Lucas and Luna trace the wrenching, world-altering transformation that began around 1760 in Britain and redrew every line of human existence. This series moves from the clattering textile mills of Manchester to the sooty skies of Pittsburgh, from the coal seams of Wales to the ironworks of Germany’s Ruhr Valley. They examine the lives of inventors like James Watt, Richard Arkwright, and Henry Cort; the dark underside of child labor, urban squalor, and the Luddite uprisings; and the economic theories of Adam Smith and Karl Marx that crystallized in this crucible. They explore the spread across Europe, into the United States, and then to Japan’s Meiji Restoration and Russia’s belated industrialization. The show confronts the environmental debt—the carbon emissions whose consequences we still pay—and the geopolitical shifts that made Europe dominant for a century. It asks: Did the steam engine liberate or enslave? Was the factory system progress or plunder? And how does the Industrial Revolution echo in today’s automation, gig economy, and climate crisis? With a global lens and a commitment to human stories, Lucas and Luna offer a narrative that is both epic and intimate, connecting the first spinning jenny to the smartphone in your pocket.

Support FexingoRSS Feed