What do you think our country would look like today if the U. S. hadn't participated in the Industrial Revolution?

For starters, America wouldn't produce as much as it does today. The Industrial Revolution also allowed the production of machinery and weaponry, which means that should the U.S not participate in the Industrial Revolution, we would take much longer to grow into the strong Military power that we are today. America might even go more into Agricultural Business, meaning that most of the nation would instead focus on the food production, thus reducing the number of high rise cities that were supposed to exist.

explanation: we can only guess at how our actions may be perceived in the future. doing something really big like killing lots of people, saving lots of people, affecting the lives of lots of people is a sure fire way of being remembered in historical records. we can also make a difference in the history records by being a small influence on something bigger, whether that is as a civil servant, scientist or artist.

of course you could argue that we all affect history just as tiny cogs in a   bigger machine.

if you mean how do people influence our opinions of things which have already happened, then simply by writing a book which looks at things form a different perspective and trying to convince people that this perspective is more accurate or truthful. people do it all the time i.e. richard the third was a terrible or was he? plenty would disagree, it's just that their views aren't the most widely known.n: