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Harper Torchbook, NYC., 1940, 424 pgs., index, notes, bibliography,
illusrations, map, paperback
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Reviewer comment The period studied in this history is at the center of
the epoch of the 'territorial state' as described by Philip Bobbitt. This was
based also on the concept of 'balance of power' in which no state was to grow
too powerful at the expense of others and war was justified to insure that did
not happen. But the power of states was enhanced by their size and ability to
control additional natural resources. This also saw increasing size to armies
and fortification systems necessitating greatly increased government revenue.
Wars became frequent but with relatively limited strategic objectives. 'Cabinet
Wars' In Chapter 6 the author describes how the colonial empires of France and
Britain were expanded as part of the means for generating this added wealth.
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Chapter 1 - The Competitive State System
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Chapter 2 - The Leviathan State
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Chapter 3 - Eighteenth - Century Militarism
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Chapter 4 - The Balance of the Continents
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Chapter 5 - The Age of Enlightenment
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Chapter 6 - Commerce and Empire
"In this process of expansion of Europe over the world, predatory or
otherwise, the old mercantilist imperialism had already passed its
meridian". "What intensified the danger of a renewal of war (between
France and Britain) was the circumstance that they faced each other in four
different parts of the world: North America, The West Indies, Africa and India,
and fought for the control of four different commodities: negroes, sugar,
tobacco and indigo".
I Colonies and National Economy;
"By the middle of the eighteenth century the age of colonial chimeras was
over and the colonies had become an important and inegral part of the national
economy of Great Britain and France". "The overseas colonies
furnished important necessities to the French textile industries - dyestuffs,
of which indigo was the most common - not only to the infant manufacture of
cotton but also of linen and wool".
The author continues to describe the important place colonies and foreign
commerce played in French economy. And:
"It is undeniable, however, that in 1750 overseas expansion was already
conditioning the entire life and character of the English people, even of the
landowning aristocracy which, while affecting to despise trade, participated in
it and married it".
Again, Dr. Dorn describes the changes this brought to English society.
"Industrial processes, geared up by the agencies which had taken charge of
selling, had slowly been modified in the proceeding years, and the succeeding
decades were to witness a still more profound change in productive technology.
Large-scale production had already become a recognized feature of certain
industries, particularly of the textile manufactures and the metal trades, and
if production on a small scale still predominated, entrepreneurs were
multiplying from year to year. With a growing class of entrepreneurs, who were
accustomed to seek out new markets both for the supply of raw materials and the
disposal of finished products and who were accustomed to handle large labor
forces, English industry revealed a capacity to meet the requirements of
distant and and varied markets. The Bank of England set the pace of monetary
economy".
II The French and British Imperial System;
III The West Indies;
IV India;
V North America and the Outbreak of War
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Chapter 7 - The Diplomatic Revolution
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Chapter 8 - The Seven Years' War
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- Bibliographical essay
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