Opening Pandora's jar

The story of Pandora exists in several versions which differ somewhat from each other. A summary of the most widely received version would run much as follows. Both Pandora herself and her jar were created at the command of Zeus who was hoping to punish Prometheus for having stolen fire from the sun to animate his man of clay. Pandora was made the personification of beauty and possessed many abilities. She was commanded to present her jar to the man whom she married. She was intended to captivate Prometheus but he was wary of accepting her and her jar. Instead she married Prometheus' brother, Epimetheus, who lacked his brother's caution. Despite receiving a warning about acting imprudently, Epimetheus, on being presented with the jar, opened it. In doing so he released into the world a host of evils but also hope which might, in some sense, offset them.

Any close analogy between this story and the industrial revolution might seem ludicrously far fetched. Yet in some respects there is a telling resemblance between the myth and the historical event. The industrial revolution was unexpected by contemporaries and many of the features of the period which have attracted so much attention with the benefit of hindsight went largely unnoticed at the time. Like Pandora and her husband when the jar was opened, nothing in their past experience had prepared people at the time for what was to follow.