The Origins of the Modern World: A Global and Ecological Narrative from the Fifteenth to the Twenty-first Century

Industrialization from 1750 to 1850 ended what Marks calls the biological old regime. He traces the origins of industrialization in Britain to the British demand for Indian cotton textiles, which were both cheaper and of better quality than English textiles. India’s “competitive advantage” was that Indian agriculture produced more than Europe’s did, so the British government banned imports of textiles. England and the Dutch Republic began expanding their colonial holdings by the late 17th century. However, this expansion was largely the work of private trading companies, such as the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, or VOC), the English East India Company (EIC), and the French West India Company. The expansion of these companies was often intertwined with their nations’ military conflicts; for example, the VOC was linked with the Dutch Republic’s hostility toward European Catholic powers such as Spain, while the EIC became embroiled in Britain’s rivalry with France.

While outlawing textile imports from India, Britain imported cotton from the Americas. This cotton, as well as cotton imported from the Ottoman Empire, was by the 1780s made into thread in factories located in Lancashire that ran on water mills and employed hundreds of workers. Production rose even higher with Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin.