Eric’s Reviews > Empire of Guns: The Violent Making of the Industrial Revolution > Status Update

"The myth of pacific British industrialism was the other side of the coin of the myth of Asian despotism. We must give up both and understand how capital and state institutions interacted in the organization of society, military strategy, the state, industry, and empire."

Moral life of guns

Property was not an abstract principle the British brought into benighted parts of the world but something actively made in particular places through appropriation and violence. As currency, commodities, weapons, symbols of power, and more, guns were critical to eighteenth-century colonialism--to British trespass abroad. 261-262

"...the corporate partnerships that constituted the eighteenth-century 'state'."

"... industrial revolution came to the gun trade in these years without major mechanical transformation." Late 18th century.

Satia is challenging my understanding of industrialization by showing how mass production of guns largely grew from organizational and design changes. The state promoted these changes.

"The British state steadily guided the gun industry's growth and spread."
Other insights so far:
-18th C guns were *not* durable, rust attacked barrels and worms threatened stocks
-"Public" and "private" were inextricable. (62)

Already revising how I will frame industrialization in Britain. Very engaging.