The industrial revolution and British imperialism, 1750-1850.

The article focuses on the material base that supported Great Britain's imperialist expansion between 1750 and 1850. The most obvious grounds for doubting the significance of manufacturing as a force behind British imperialism are provided by the course of events in India, the main field of conquest during the period in question, and the inducement or staging post for acquisitions elsewhere, such as Cape Colony, Singapore, Aden, and Hong Kong. The first major advance was made in Bengal, at about the same time as some experiments in Lancashire that would ultimately prove momentous but long before large-scale mechanization. From the 1790s the East India Company's armies made important advances, most notably against Mysore and Marathas, but these conquests were intended primarily as strategic responses to the threat from revolutionary France. Asia's share of British exports fell, only recovering in the 1820s, after the decisive conquests had been made, when Lancashire technology at last began to undercut Indian weavers in their local markets. It has been suggested that the rate of increase in industrial production per head may not have accelerated markedly until after 1815, rather than during the 1760s or 1780s, once conventional starting points for the industrial revolution.