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. This allowed Britain to take over the global textile trade during the 19th century. Afterward, the British government abandoned mercantilism and adopted free trade, ending tariffs on imports. Two contingencies enabled the rise of the British textile industry. The first was that after the Glorious Revolution of 1688-1689 in Britain, a mercantilist government emerged that used its political power to protect Britain’s own textile industry, while the Americas “developed as a peculiar periphery that […] provided a market for British manufactured goods, textiles included” (107). The second was the invention of the steam engine, which enabled the British to compete with the Indian textile trade.

Two traditional historiographical arguments exist for the origins of the Industrial Revolution. One is that Europeans had smaller families due to cultural practices like late marriage, which meant fewer workers and forced manufacturers to maximize production and efficiency. The other is that the emergence of free trade helped Europe overcome trade from other regions of the world. However, Marks rejects both of these arguments. The Chinese did keep their population low through abstinence early in marriages and through infanticide. Nonetheless, Marks suggests that Chinese agricultural capacity was reaching its limit under the biological old regime by the late 18th century, but agricultural techniques mitigated this. Also, Chinese markets were “more efficient than contemporary markets in France, England, or the United States” (112). Chinese peasants, especially in the “more peripheral areas” (114), were free to grow what they liked, so they made and locally traded their own cotton textiles. Aiding this tendency was the Chinese cultural norm that pressured women to stay at home and weave for their families, rather than going to work in a factory, as in Britain. These factors led China not toward industrial development like Britain, but “toward a more efficient exploitation of natural resources within the confines of the biological old regime” (114).

During the 1500-1800 period, awareness rose that people were using up farmable land and causing species of animals to go extinct, and governments took action. For example, the Japanese government in the 17th century enacted several laws to reverse deforestation. The pressure from the biological old regime in Britain caused people to turn from coal to wood to heat their homes. In addition, Britain managed by importing food, cotton, wood, and other raw materials from North America. Marks argues that had Britain depended on its own land, it would not have been able to industrialize.

Industrialization in Britain was also driven by the large amount of coal available there; 70% of it was used as heating fuel for London, and the rest was used by manufacturers. The need to pump water out of coal mines led to the development of the first steam engine. Additionally, the transportation of coal inspired the first railroad. Railroad tracks in England grew from some 4,500 miles in 1840 to over 23,000 miles by 1850. Marks argues that this explosion in British industrialization occurred only because Britain faced “the ecological limits of the biological old regime” (120). Likewise, the Chinese and Japanese depended on coal as a heating source as they confronted a lack of wood due to deforestation. However, resources from North America and Britain’s colonies freed up labor and land, allowing them to focus on coal extraction and industrialization. Also, the British government enacted policies that encouraged coal and iron production.

Marks argues against the interpretation that the European scientific revolution that started in the 16th century led to the Industrial Revolution. First, “particular circumstances in England” (122), such as the availability of resources from colonies and the amount of coal available, enabled the breakthrough of the steam engine. Second, the people who developed the steam engine and other early inventions of the Industrial Revolution were not scientists but mechanics. Additionally, scientific reasoning was not unique to Europe but existed across Eurasia, especially Persia and China. Marks attributes industrialization in Britain not to the scientific revolution but to other factors: the decline of Spain and its failure to establish a pan-European empire; deforestation in Britain and the demand for fuel for heating from London, leading to a demand for coal; the decline of India’s Mughal Empire, allowing Britain and other European powers to gain a stronger foothold on Asian trade; the Seven Years’ War, resulting in Britain gaining a monopoly over India and North America; and “China’s demand for silver and the fortuitous New World supply of it [which] provided Europeans with a means […] to buy spices and industrial goods produced in Asia” (123).

One important trade network was the British East India Company’s trade in tea with China. Because workers in industrial factories worked longer hours than they had before, the demand for tea and its caffeine grew: “By 1800, textile workers and coal miners were spending 5 percent of their income just on tea (10 percent if sugar is added)” (124). The Chinese government restricted foreign trade to one port, Guangzhou. A diplomatic mission to China led by Sir George Macartney failed to convince the Chinese emperor to open China to more trade from Britain. As British access to American silver declined because of the American Revolution, Britain struggled to find another export for tea and found that the only commodity that worked was opium from India. This fueled an opioid addiction epidemic in China. Attempts by the Chinese government, especially commissioner Lin Zexu, to reduce the amount of opium coming into China led to violent clashes between the Chinese and the British, culminating in the Opium War of 1839-1842. In this war, the British used the first gunboat with a steam engine, named the Nemesis. Chinese ships were no match for it. The 1842 Treaty of Nanjing was the first of several “unequal treaties” between China and the Western powers, resulting in huge concessions like the prosperous port city of Hong Kong being signed over to the British on a 99-year lease. The kind of industrialization that made the Nemesis possible, Marks argues, marks the beginning of the Anthropocene, an anthropological era in which human actions have tremendous impacts on the environment. An Industrial Revolution might have happened in other times and places, but the development of the steam engine proved decisive.