During the 18th and 19th centuries England develops its colonial infrastructures to become the most successful colonizer in history operating out of its global headquarters, London.
As in the case of Amsterdam, London’s prosperity was derived from extractive activities around the World. In 1688, Protestant Dutch Burgher Willem of Orange became William III of England. Under the Dutch-burgher-turned-King William III, England adapts rapidly to the Dutch system of commerce. England which has a larger population. England also directly controlled lands that provided timber oil, sugar, iron, cotton and tobacco extracted from the West Indies as well as the Americas. The timber along the Atlantic coasts will allow it to build ships to build ships to challenge the Dutch in the Indian Ocean and in South Africa. Thus, London ccombineds the Dutch System with and Mercantilism, and later, coercive industrialization to rule the World for nearly two centuries.
During the 18th and 19th centuries England develops its colonial infrastructures to become the most successful colonizer in history operating out of its global headquarters, London.
As in the case of Amsterdam, London’s prosperity was derived from extractive activities around the World. In 1688, Protestant Dutch Burgher Willem of Orange became William III of England.
Known as the “Glorious Revolution,” the change of power in 1688 was much more than just replacing one king with another. William III was invited to invade England by powerful members of the English Parliament. One of William’s first actions was to enact a Bill of Rights striking a new balance between royal and parliamentary power. With the erosion of royal sponsored land expropriations and trade monopolies, wealthy merchants and early industrialists were incentivized to expand their activities contributing to a steady expansion of economic activity by a newly powerful merchant-industrialist class. The new era of English Imperialism in London was born out of 5 complementary but distinct systems each with distinctive architectures:
1. London itself is reshaped by the wealth from its overseas colonies to build squares, new religious monuments and dwellings for the newly wealthy merchants
2. An Independent Central bank is created to finance war, provide loans, issue bonds and control the currency, paving the way for English laws, ideological systems and Empire to spread around the world and influencing the Neo-Liberal financing system that undergirds global economics in the aftermath of World War Two. The Bank of England and other merchant banks fuel the well-established joint stock company system to more forcefully drive a global system of exchange feeding the ensuing English industrial revolution
3. A Capitalist legal monopoly in the form of the East India Company extract the wealth of the Indian ocean and concentrates it in the hands of shareholders in London, allowing London to become one of the most powerful cities on Earth. The English “Mercantile System” primarily through the East India Company conjoins state-directed military operations to protect and expand trade relations deemed profitable to the mother country, particularly its capital city, London.
4. In the 19th Century as England transforms itself into an Empire, London builds the Crystal Palace in order to host the Great Exhibition of all Nations designed to highlight its prominence as a global capital
5. This rapid growth will come at a cost as urban London becomes over-crowded, giving birth to discontent, violence and crowded slums.
Please review and agree to the following terms and conditions to proceed to your download:
Click the link below to download this file!
()
Your account is awaiting verification.
Your account has not yet been verified by a GAHTC administrator. Once your account is verified, you will
be able to download course materials. You will be notified by email when your account has been verified.
In the meantime, you can continue to search the site and add resources to your bundles. Thank you!
