Maoris and Industrial Technology: A Comparative Study of the Adaptation of a Pre-industrial People to an Industrial Milieu (*N)

Abstract

Industrialisation is one of the most important developments affecting mankind today. The incomparably greater economic, political, and military power attained by the industrialized nations has afforded them the most influential roles in shaping world events. Under modern conditions the enjoyment of a high standard of living by most of the population in a society is usually dependent on a national economy which has a significant industrial basis. There tends to be a high positive correlation between those countries which are industrialised and those which are ‘developed’, and, conversely, between those which are unindustrialised and those which are ‘underdeveloped’.