Abstract This chapter examines the historical experience of industrialization, innovation, and infrastructure development within the context of SDG 9. Two important questions are addressed by this chapter. First, how, when, where, and why did the Industrial Revolution begin? Second, how and why did industrialization efforts take hold in other regions and fail to spread to others? In answering the first question, we trace the global antecedents and impact of the Industrial Revolution in Europe and chart how an uneven global geography of resource procurement, production, and consumption came to define human development. In answering the second, we focus on Sub-Saharan Africa in the twentieth century—the region which has struggled most to implement SDG 9. In answering both questions, we argue that successful industrialization locally is often contingent on and in turn affects geographically broad economic, social, and environmental patterns.