Great Britain: Colonization and the English Industrial Revolution

Great Britain: Colonization and the English Industrial Revolution

Carte de l'Empire britannique en 1886.

Données clés

Professeur(s)	Bouda Etemad
Cours	Economic and Social History of the Third World

Lectures

• The major stages of European expansion from the 16th to the 20th centuries
• Costs of the first European expansion (16th-18th centuries)
• Costs of the second European expansion (18th-20th centuries): Asia and Africa conquered by themselves
• Great Britain: Colonization and the English Industrial Revolution
• Great Britain: The Largest of Empires at the Service of a Dominant Economy
• France and its empire: a history tinged with suspicion
• Colonization, Institutions and Inequalities of Development in the Americas
• India to the test of British domination
• French Algeria: the destructive nature of a "mixed" colony
• Sub-Saharan Africa sick of colonization?

Are the American colonies contributing and if so in what way to Britain's successful industrial start-up experience?

Britain was the first to embark on the Industrial Revolution and the case of Great Britain is always shown as a forerunner. Is its colonial domain an asset? A hindrance? Without its colonial domain, would Britain's industrialization have taken place?

The first question is at the time of the industrial revolution what is the British colonial domain? In the middle of the 18th century, is it a colonial domain with a lot of substance? By way of comparison, where can it be located? Are there different types of colonies?

If we are interested in the contribution of the colonies to the industrial revolution, we have to ask ourselves the question of the colonies. In the second half of the eighteenth century, India was hardly colonized at all.

On the other hand, it is an empire of relatively recent creation, the first British settlements in North America date from the beginning of the 17th century at the earliest, on the other hand, it is a rather vast but sparsely populated colonial domain.

Excluding British trading posts and bases in West Africa and the Indian subcontinent, these are settlements without a territorial basis.

Consequently, we can distinguish two types of colonies that make up the British Empire on the eve of the industrial revolution:

The first type are those that will become the United States, the thirteen colonies of North America, on the Atlantic coast are colonies of central and northern Europeans. The central colonies are Maryland, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania and New York, and to the north are New England, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rode Iceland and New Hampshire. The Native American inhabitants of these territories were driven out beyond the settlement.

The second type of colonies are the plantation colonies located in the Caribbean, the Wests Indies, these are the British West Indies with Jamaica, Virginia, Georgia, North Coraline and South Carolina, which are exporters of tropical commodities, coffee, indigo, tobacco, sugar and cotton.

These possessions do not have a population that has the same composition as the colonies of the first type, the populations are mixed with imported African slaves who constitute either the majority as in the Wests Indies or strong minorities in the southern states of the United States.

In total, the British colonial domain of the former regime has restricted boundaries and by the mid-18th century Great Britain controls 13% of the land area owned by the five European colonial powers and 10% of the populations occupying it.

The Ancient Regime colonial powers are Spain and Portugal, the British domain in the mid-18th century is less extensive than the Portuguese possessions and less populated than the Dutch colonies.

What is the importance of colonial expansion for industrialization?

Languages

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Williams' thesis

Eric Williams

For fifty years, this thesis has permeated the specialized literature, and the authors who ask themselves this question are in relation to Eric Williams.

Williams was born in 1911 in the West Indies in Trinidad, a British colony since 1902. He studied at Oxford where he presented his doctoral thesis in 1938, which was published in 1944 under the title Capitalism and Slavery., the French translation was published in Paris in 1968.

« This study is forced to place in a historical perspective the relationships that exist between the beginnings of capitalism and the relationships between the successful industrial start by Great Britain three things: 1) the slave trade, 2) the slave plantation system and 3) the colonial trade. ».

The defended idea which is at the heart of his thesis: « the discovery of America was important not for the precious metals supplied by the New World, but for the new and inexhaustible markets it offered to Europeans ».

The New World is an outlet, a very appreciable new market much more important than the precious metals supplied.

What is gained with the colonization of America and who wins? It is world trade, the considerable increase that gains Modèle:Quote is mainly due to the triangular trade in which Great Britain provides the exports of industrial goods, Africa the human goods and the American plantations the raw colonial raw materials}}.

It is a network, and within this network, the North American colonies play a special role as suppliers of food for the sugar cane growers and their slaves. The colonies in the northern and eastern United States are complementary to the specialized agriculture of the West Indies.

Classic pattern of triangular trade between Africa, the Americas and Europe.

The Atlantic network based on slavery thus fulfils three functions for the economy of Great Britain:

• distribution of British products
• source of supply of raw products and raw materials
• source of profits

The three functions are devolved to the colonies, which can in these different ways contribute to the industrialization, to the industrial start of Great Britain in the second half of the 18th century.

If the colonies do this effectively, then they contribute to industrialization by facilitating and supporting it.

One of Williams' ideas was that on the Atlantic network, there is a whole series of activities: the slave trade, colonial trade and also set up in particular in the East Indies and the United States, namely the plantation system.

This trade takes place within the framework of the triangular trade; these activities generate profits, the idea is that the profits from and generated on this network feed the accumulation of capital in Great Britain contributing to the financing of the industrial revolution. These profits are one of the streams or sources of capital accumulation to finance the industrial revolution.

Overseas Profits and Industrial Capital Formation

What has attracted a lot of attention from economic historians because it's something that has been in the limelight is the profits from the slave trade.

Did the slave trade in the 18th century - which was the height of the Atlantic slave trade and whose first slave nation in Europe was Britain - generate profits, and to what extent did they contribute to the formation of industrial capital? Was some of the financing able to prevent the gains generated by the slave trade?

To get to the heart of the matter, there are two characteristics of the slave trade that should be remembered and that affect the rate of profit:

• the first characteristic is that to launch a slave expedition you need a lot of money. In the 18th century it was said that the trade was a risky business.
• the second characteristic is that it is a risky trade, the trade can lead to spectacular profits as well as resounding losses.

We were interested in evaluating the profits and especially in estimating the profitability, that is to say the rate of profit. Knowing the number of captives transported and being able to determine the evolution of prices, we can estimate the amount of the evolution of profits.

What interests us is the rate of profit; the first evaluations of the profitability of the slave trade already date back to the end of the 18th century, one of these evaluations which will be successful and have a very long life as a reference is an evaluation of 30% for the port of Liverpool.

This rate was taken up by Williams, among others, without being verified or criticised until the middle of the 20th century. With such a supposed rate, thanks to compound interest, capital invested at more than 30 per cent doubles in less than three years, it is hardly surprising that the profits of the slave trade were justified as an important contribution to the industrial revolution.

This rate of return has been revised downwards and no one retains this rate any more, most specialists retain a rate of 8% to 10% per annum for the British slave trade of the second half of the eighteenth century.

From the 1970s - 1980s, the attempts will continue thereafter, the specialists will ask themselves what this represents by making reports. The higher the denominator, the lower the percentage ratio will be.

These are rather quantitativist historians, in the context of these exercises there are initial hypotheses, the results obtained suggest that these slave profits are large enough to finance a significant fraction of the investments required in the industry.

The first results presented assume that during a large part of the 18th century, the contribution of slave capital - provided that all the profits from the slave trade were reinvested in Great Britain - generated profits averaging 8 to 10 per cent a year and that all the profits earned by British slave traders and repatriated to Great Britain were invested in their entirety, in which case, during much of the 18th century, this contribution represented between 0.1% and 0.5% of national income, between 2.5% and 8% of gross fixed capital formation, between 16% and 40% of total investment in trade and industry. If it is assumed that the profits from the slave trade are fully reinvested in industry, then they would represent half of what needs to be invested in the industrial sector.

If the slave profits are fully invested in industry, then this would provide half of the financing in this sector at the time of start-up.

If we take a large aggregate, slave profits appear to be negligible; one must be careful with studies that neglect the contribution of the slave trade to the British industrial revolution, the other extreme must also be qualified with caution, one must always open up the widest possible range and give every possibility of quantification.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, the authors will try to stick more closely to Williams' thesis, because he does not only talk about trafficking and the profits it can generate.

There are other systems of trade, so we have to assess the profits of the triangular trade, the profits generated by the exchange of goods between Great Britain, Africa and America, and we also have to add the profits of the slave exploitation system.

This has been tried, but we must no longer consider that all the profits generated on the Atlantic network are reinvested. The reinvestment assumption today is 30%. Assuming such a rate of reinvestment, the profits from the triangular trade alone would be sufficient to finance investment in the industry around the last third of the 18th century.

These are very interesting quantification exercises because we did not have such indications or orders of magnitude, in other words, if we can talk about the achievements of historiography, we have something today, but only allowing us to say that, yes, what was set up on the Atlantic network and which was based on slavery generated significant profits.

All these exercises, which are quickly summarised, tell us nothing, however, about the actual destination of the accumulation of wealth; there is an accumulation of wealth that is no longer being debated today.

We do not know the final destination of this accumulation of wealth derived from relations between Great Britain, Africa and America.

The money of the slave traders, the money of the planters, the money of the sugar merchants engaged in colonial trade, this money contributes to increasing British national income, but it is very difficult to establish direct and clearly marked links between overseas profits and industrial investment.

Research shows that among them, especially planters returning to the British Isles and becoming directly involved in British industry, only a very small number of them. What we know of the great Caribbean sugar barons is that they are attracted by land investments and government bonds, these high income earners have strong preferences for secure and prestigious investments, they establish « more castles than factories ».

There are induced effects that show the limits of quantification, merchants or planters or even slave traders enriched by the activities on the Atlantic network may prove to be the providers of the credits indispensable for the development of industries that they do not directly take the initiative to launch at a time when the banking network is beginning to emerge.

Other induced effects may be at the origin of the financing of regional infrastructures such as canals or various equipment necessary for the emergence of manufactures; banks such as Lloyds may take off thanks to the profits of the slave trade, and the profits from the Atlantic trade, which are first turned into financial jobs, may find themselves partly mobilized for the development of industry.

This is a mixed conclusion, we get something, but if we try to look for direct and immediate effects, we miss other mechanisms that are probably more important and that therefore give this conclusion on this first function a balanced character.

Colonies as a source of raw materials

The second function is the possibility for the colonies, and more particularly the plantation colonies, to provide the metropolis at a time when it is living a particular phase of its economic history, when it is engaged in industrialization and when within this framework it is considered that there are dynamic driving branches driving the rest of the productive apparatus that the colonies supply with raw materials.

In which case the colonies would fulfil the second function, namely, that of being a source of supply of raw materials in large and abundant quantities, i.e., at a given time the colony would supply raw cotton by supplying the industry on a regular basis, in other words, there would be no impediment to the supply of raw materials to such a branch.

The cotton industry in Great Britain to exist and develop must overcome a first obstacle which is competition from Asian textiles.

In order to develop, the British cotton industry needs to lower its production costs, which will be done with mechanisation, and in order to develop, grow and win foreign markets, the British cotton industry needs to be regularly supplied with cheap raw materials.

Three conditions are needed:

• the industry must protect
• the industry must mechanize
• the industry must be supplied on a regular basis

The colonies if they can contribute intervene by allowing the third condition to be met.

Towards the middle of the 18th century, it is a fragile industry, it must be protected from competition from Asian textiles and especially from Indian cottons. This protection will be effective once not only protectionist but also prohibitive measures to ban the import of Asian fabrics are taken from 1700 to 1774.

For much of the 18th century, a whole series of measures will ensure the survival of the cotton industry.

Once the cotton industry is protected from external competition from Asia, Britain will - once it has protected itself from Asian textiles, once it has managed to mechanize the production process in this industry, once it has benefited from the supply from the other side of the Atlantic as well, then it will - penetrate the markets of the Indian subcontinent. At the time when Great Britain's industrial take-off was taking place, the cotton industry in the middle of the 18th century was still fragile and needed some support in order to grow.

The second condition is an endogenous factor which is mechanization. According to some authors, the British adopted mechanization because a certain pressure came from outside, but the mechanization of the textile industry, especially at the time of spinning, is a challenge that must be credited to endogenous forces.

The mechanization of textiles will lower the cost price and save labour. The handicap for Great Britain is the cost of labour compared to the cost of labour in the Indian subcontinent, this gap will be settled and closed to Great Britain's advantage through mechanisation.

A third condition must be added because the first two are not enough to understand how British industry is resisting cheap Indian textiles is the possibility of having secure sources of raw materials because Britain controls them.

It is a source that is plentiful, British consumption will be satisfied, and it is cheap, because cotton is produced by slaves.

Today we know that slavery is economically profitable, helping to lower the price of raw cotton.

The consumption of raw cotton in Great Britain was at one time very important and had to be satisfied, from 1760 to 1840 this consumption was multiplied by almost 200. A comparative advantage of British industry is the ease of supply which relieves British industry of the problem of cotton supply while other branches of British manufacturing industry are slow to solve.

From the middle of the 18th century, 85% to 90% of the cotton imported into Britain was supplied by the American slave plantation system from the southern part of what is now the United States, the West Indies and Brazil until the middle of the 19th century.

In the 18th century, Brazil was indirectly controlled by Great Britain, of which Portugal was the vassal. Portugal submitted because this allowed it to keep Brazil.

From the beginning of the 19th century, the process of industrialization in Great Britain reached a point of maturation. It is already a century since industrialization began and it is from that moment that India became a regular supplier of raw cotton to Great Britain.

After the First World War the main raw material was oil, in the second half of the 18th century and the second half of the 19th century the main raw material was raw cotton and the cotton industry was a dynamic and exciting branch.

For the period that concerns us, it is an industry that can be considered as driving up growth, it is a driving industry.

Débouchés d’outre-mer et industrialisation

En s’appuyant sur les statistiques commerciales de la Grande-Bretagne, que beaucoup d’auteurs ont retravaillé, montrent que le commerce extérieur de la première nation à se lancer dans le commerce industriel s’américanise au XVIIIème siècle.

Vers 1700, 82 % des exportations de la Grande-Bretagne sont destinées à l’Europe tandis que l’Europe assure 62 % des importations de la Grande-Bretagne ; un siècle plus tard, les exportations sont destinées pour 57 % aux colonies alors que la part de l’Europe dégringole.

C’est ce qu’on appelle l’américanisation du commerce extérieur de la Grande-Bretagne ; autrement dit les débouchés coloniaux pour Williams sont « ce que l’on gagne avec le Nouveau Monde sont des nouveaux marchés ».

Disposer de nouveaux marchés est important, car nous sommes à une époque où dans le monde les marchés sont fermés. Ce qui domine jusqu’au milieu de XIXème siècle est le mercantilisme, les économies sont protégées, c’est le protectionnisme qui règne en maitre.

Le principal partenaire commercial est l’Europe continentale, mais l’Europe continentale est verrouillée d’où cet avantage qui consiste à un moment donné de disposer de nouveaux marchés qui sont des « chasses gardées ».

C’est le Pacte Colonial, les Français vont appeler plus tard cela le Régime de l’Exclusif, cela consiste à faire des marchés coloniaux des « chasses gardées » pour la métropole. Il y a des dispositions comme les Actes de Navigation en vigueur de 1751 jusqu’à 1849 qui réservent pour la Grande-Bretagne le produit des colonies aux navires britanniques et impose aux colonies de n’acheter et de vendre qu’à la métropole.

Il y a une interdiction de commercer avec d’autres pays que la métropole est donc une interdiction de s’industrialiser ce qui va notamment stimuler la révolte des treize colonies américaines menant à la déclaration unilatérale de l’indépendance des États-Unis ; c’est une liberté que ne donne pas le Régime de l’Exclusif.

Les colonies d’Amérique du Nord et des caraïbes deviennent des marchés de plus en plus importants parce que leur population s’accroit de 1700 à 1815 les colonies britanniques ont une population qui augmente de 0,4 à plus de 9 millions d’habitants ; il faut ajouter à cela les colonies et les comptoirs que la Grande-Bretagne possède sur le littoral atlantique de l’Afrique et en Asie.

Les colonies sont la partie la plus consistante de ce réseau, mais on considère qu’à l’intérieur de ce réseau la Grande-Bretagne dispose d’une zone de libre-échange réservée aux manufacturiers britanniques.

Grâce à ces marchés lointains, ce qui constitue un avantage pour les Britanniques de contourner les difficultés rencontrées sur les marchés habituels d’une Europe qui se ferme de plus en plus aux produits britanniques concurrentiels.

Si on regarde finement les statistiques, les colonies figurent parmi les clients les plus importants des manufacturiers, l’Amérique du Nord et les Caraïbes absorbent à elles seules la moitié des exportations d’articles manufacturés de la Grande-Bretagne. Sur le trafic colonial viennent se connecter d’autres réseaux d’échanges qui sont interdépendants, c’est le commerce de réexportation.

Le trafic colonial va lubrifier par le biais des réexportations de produits exotiques les relations commerciales de la Grande-Bretagne avec l’Europe continentale. Les réexportations concernent un ensemble de produits comme les denrées tropicales importées, mais qu’elle ne peut consommer entièrement, elles concernaient le tabac, le riz d’Amérique du Nord, le café et le rhum des Antilles ainsi que les cotonnades et les thés d’Asie.

Au cours du XVIIIème siècle, plus du tiers des exportations de ce pays est composé par les réexportations.

Il y a les exportations de produits nationaux et l’exportation de la Grande-Bretagne de produits qui viennent d’ailleurs des colonies ou des comptoirs asiatiques ; ces réexportations offrent des avantages remplissant deux fonctions :

• ces réexportations permettent à la Grande-Bretagne de rééquilibrer sa balance commerciale avec plusieurs pays européens qui barrent la route aux produits manufacturés, mais laissent passer les denrées tropicales, car ces pays ne disposent pas des réseaux ou des moyens pour se fournir en produits tropicaux. La Grande-Bretagne va fonctionner
• les réexportations de produits coloniaux permettent d’acheter des matières premières d’Europe septentrionale dont la Grande-Bretagne a besoin comme la résine, le goudron lin, chambre nécessaire à la construction de la flotte marchande qui fournit du travail à de nombreux marins et ouvriers britanniques.

Un autre réseau est lié aux activités que développe la Grande-Bretagne sur le réseau atlantique qui sont les échanges avec la côte occidentale de l’Afrique.

Le commerce des esclaves est un troc, contre les captifs, les négriers européens doivent amener en fond de cales des marchandises afin de les échanger. Ces marchandises constituent la cargaison de traite, mais c’est un assortiment au sein duquel dominent les textiles, mais aussi de la pacoterie. Toutefois, l’essentiel de la cargaison de traite est constitué de produits élaborés comme les produits textiles et issus de l’industrie sidérurgique.

La cargaison de traite est constituée de textiles dont les cotonnades est importantes, mais ce sont les Asiatiques qui détiennent les clefs du marché, ils sont sans rivaux jusqu’au milieu du XVIIIème siècle.

Avec la mécanisation, les Britanniques vont se mettre à copier le design, les motifs et les couleurs des cotonnades indiennes que l’on appelle l’étoile de Guinée et si prisée par les courtiers africains.

Au fur et à mesure que se développe le trafic des esclaves, il faut amener de plus en plus de marchandises sur des bateaux qui ont des capacités de plus en plus grandes, une fraction de ces cargaisons de traites sera constituée de produits britanniques. La traite négrière peut être considérée comme un réseau d’échanges qui vient s’articuler autour d’un trafic colonial à travers l’Atlantique.

Le commerce colonial déborde sur d’autres circuits marchands. Le commerce colonial est inséré sur le réseau atlantique soit le commerce triangulaire qui est plus large.

Nous pouvons mesurer le poids du commerce colonial seulement à partir la deuxième moitié du XIXème siècle qui est une phase significative.

Le premier élément est le taux d’exportation de l’économie britannique pour la période de l’industrialisation et du démarrage économique donc de la seconde moitié du XVIIIème siècle. Le taux d’exportation est un rapport de la valeur totale des exportations rapporté au produit interne brut, on l’appelle aussi le coefficient d’ouverture.

Plus une économie est petite par sa taille, plus elle doit être concurrentielle et donc son coefficient d’ouverture est important. Avec les États-Unis, plus un pays est grand par la taille plus son marché intérieur est substantiel est consistent moins son taux d’exportation est élevé.

Pour l’économie britannique, le taux d’exportation est de 12 % à 13 % durant les phases de la révolution industrielle.

De la même manière que nous devons connaître la fraction de la production nationale qui est exportée, nous devons déterminer la fraction de la production industrielle vendue sur les marchés extérieurs : c’est environ 30 % de la production industrielle britannique qui est vendue sur les marchés extérieurs.

Les colonies captent 40 % du total des exportations de la Grande-Bretagne est 45 % de ses produits manufacturés.

Si on combine ces quatre éléments, on arrive à déterminer le poids des marchés coloniaux. Ils absorbent environ 5 % du produit national de la Grande-Bretagne et de 13 % à 14 % de sa production industrielle.

Parfois, quelques pourcentages suffisent à une réussite.

Le marché colonial est protégé ; on pourrait avancer une idée qui existe dans la littérature spécialisée, à savoir que les marchés protégés sont des marchés réservés, facile d’accès et donc pouvant exercer un effet d’assouplissement.

Il se trouve que les marchés coloniaux sont importants non pas pour des branches manufacturières en déclin, il s’agit de branches qui sont à ce moment motrices tirant la croissance vers le haut, en ce sens, la demande coloniale concerne surtout des produits de standardisation et d’industrie nouvelle.

Ainsi on peut expliquer que dans certains cas pour une réussite, de petits pourcentages suffisent.

Il est entendu que la demande extérieure est beaucoup moins importante que la demande intérieure.

Les marchés coloniaux sont 5 % du PNB et 12 % à 13 % de la production industrielle, mais il s’agit d’un commerce qui a eu une importance cruciale pour quelques branches innovantes. C’est un commerce international qui a une importance pour des pôles régionaux comme pour Liverpool et Manchester.

Sur ces deux registres, ce sont et des branches et des pôles tournés vers le grand large, c’est-à-dire insérés sur le réseau atlantique.

Il faut donner à chacun son poids, il faut faire la part des choses. La conclusion est proposée pour reconnaître certains points, cette conclusion a aussi pour objectif de dire que Williams avait probablement raison.

Il faut tenir compte de ce qu’apportent les colonies, mais qu’il ne faut pas exagérer cet apport, mais il ne faut pas non plus le dénigrer.

Dans cette leçon consacrée de la contribution des colonies au démarrage industrielles de la Grande-Bretagne, il faut d’abord reconnaitre que les profits du commerce triangulaire ont financé l’industrie naissance, mais il est difficile de calculer leur contribution effective.

Sans le système de plantation esclavagiste américain, l’industrie du coton n’aurait pas connu son succès, mais on peut s’interroger de savoir si sans cette réussite le processus d’industrialisation aurait été avorté, on peut toutefois avancer que cela a facilité les choses.

Il y a des éléments que l’on peut quantifier, mais on n’arrive pas à des conclusions définitives, il y a aussi des effets non quantifiables. L’essor du commerce atlantique basé sur la traite négrière et le commerce de sucre contribuent à l’amélioration et à la sophistication des techniques d’assurance, de pratiques commerciales et de l’industrie navale, par ailleurs le grand commerce colonial joue un rôle dans l’affirmation de valeurs et d’élites nouvelles qui contribuent pour une part à l’ère des révolutions.

Le démarrage économique de la Grande-Bretagne aurait eu lieu sans les avantages et les gains générés par la traite négrière, le commerce colonial et le système esclavagiste des plantations américaines.

Il est vrai que les profits tirés de la traite négrière auraient pu contribuer à la moitié des investissements de l’industrie, mais il faut faire intervenir les facteurs endogènes, le secteur secondaire et l’industrie fait partie d’une économie nationale dont le développement dépend d’une multitude de facteurs économiques, sociaux, politiques et culturels. Les facteurs endogènes de développement sont par exemple le progrès agricole, l’essor de démographique, la nature de l’État, la vigueur du marché, ce sont des structures qui dépendent d’un temps long, les choses se sont misent en place avant que la Grande-Bretagne ne se taille un empire américain.

Contrairement à une historiographie qui a dominé entre les années 1960 et 1980, il faut reconnaître que les colonies américaines et les esclaves africains ont contribué ; leur rôle ne doit pas être escamoté, mais leur rôle ne doit pas non plus être exagéré.

Aujourd’hui, on considère que c’est un apport parmi d’autres, mais non la condition préalable et privilégiée de la révolution industrielle.

Sans cet apport, il est incontestable que le rythme de la croissance de la Grande-Bretagne aurait été plus grand, mais nous ne pouvons savoir dans quelle mesure. L’apport colonial a soutenu l’industrialisation de la Grande-Bretagne lui donnant un éclat particulier, cet apport a donné un souffle et un élan permettant à l’industrialisation d’aller plus loin que si cet apport n’existe pas.

Annexes

• Foreign Affairs,. (2015). How Europe Conquered the World. Retrieved 8 October 2015, from https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/europe/2015-10-07/how-europe-conquered-world