A look back at colonialism
Given the current resergence of colonialism with the US occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, this collection of Karl Marx's writings from the hey day of the British Empire makes fascinating reading.
Many of the articles first apeared in the anti slavery newspaper the New York Daily Tribune and seek to provide a commentary for US readers on major events such as the Opium Wars and the first Indian War of Independence.
There is a growing trend in Britain in recent years to rehabiliate the British Empire as a civilising influence and thereby legitimise the UK's role in Iraq and Aghanistan. Anyone sympathetic to that view should read this book.
According to Marx, Britain's hypocrisy and brutality in provoking the second Opium War in 1856 with China is shocking. Marx nails Britian's motives in seeking to force China to allow imports of opium grown in British India at a massive profit and increase its grip on the ancient empire.
Marx does not just denounce British imperialism, he also tries to explain how its exploitation of India fitted in with its growth as an industrial power. He shows how the destruction of India's village cotton industry guaranteed a major market for the products of the Lancashire cotton mills.
Although Marx is very clear that Britain's role in India was primarily destructive for both its economy and its people, he also shows how measures such as the contruction of the railways in the late nineteenth century helped create modern industry and a sub continent-wide market. Through measures such as this, Britain unconciously laid the ground for the powerful independent India we see today.
