This book is an exhaustive account of how the British and North Americans interacted with India. The discussion includes economic as well as cultural and political interactions. The number of pages devoted to describing each of these types of interactions are approximately equal. The book is organized chronologically in that each chapter covers all interactions within a space of years rather than covering individual topics. The overall argument of the book is that interactions with India were vital in shaping the economies, culture, and politics of Britain and North America. The symmetric issue of the role of Britain or North America in shaping India is not addressed.
The relevant economics facts are not new. Initially, in the 1600s, Britain purchased cotton goods manufactured in India from Indian cotton. Britain traded the cotton goods for enslaved peoples from Africa and sugar from the West Indies. By 1830, due to new technology for cotton spinning and weaving developed in England, and, though it is not mentioned, the invention of the cotton gin in North America, Britain was able to sell cotton goods manufactured in Britain from North American cotton to India. The basics of this transition are covered here. But Joseph Inikori (Africans and the Industrial Revolution in England. A Study in International Trade and Economic Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002) covered these trade patterns in much more detail. Eacott highlights the argument made by Griffiths, Hunt, and O’Brien (Political Components of the Industrial Revolution: Parliament and the English Cotton Textile Industry, 1660–1774.” Economic History Review 44 [2008]: 395–423.) that it was the competition of Indian cotton with British woolens which almost accidentally spurred the important cotton spinning innovations of the eighteenth century, but as would be expected, this argument is developed more fully in the original article.
The limited new economic information is not a failing of the book as its focus is on attitudes. Economic issues figure primarily because market transactions most often created the context of interactions. There are some tables and figures showing trade patterns, but the truly exhaustive research is on the words and thoughts of individuals—traders, politicians and missionaries—who interacted with India. The author cites extensively from letters, newspaper articles, political pronouncements, novels, and even cookbooks.
It is difficult to summarize the topics considered as they are so varied. I will here discuss two: the role of cotton fabrics in consumption and India's “corrupting” influence on Britain.
Of the two, the latter is much more extensively discussed in the text. I only bring in the former because it is easy to describe in a short review and it is representative of the positive and negative attributes of the book. A recurring theme is the contrast between views of India as decadent and as desirable. Eacott argues cotton cloth followed this pattern. Its affordability as well as the attractiveness of the new colors and print designs meant that this luxury could spread across economic classes, which distressed at least some individuals. Ultimately, cotton cloth and Indian designs became commonplace, and Indian dress designs came to dominate fashion though they were originally described as scandalous. The first part of this argument follows Giorgio Riello (Cotton: The Fabric that Made the Modern World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013) and Maxine Berg (Luxury and Pleasure in Eighteenth Century Britain, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). I believe the argument that the chemise dress styles of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century are modelled on Indian clothing (see plate 23, p. 402) is new. I was intrigued. It would make sense that when Europe adopted Indian cloth they adopted Indian clothing styles. But the argument is suggested rather than proven. Alternative theories (such as a return to classical styles) are ignored. I am not certain proving the point was a primary goal. Most of the discussion in this section of the book was reporting European attitudes to Indian dress styles, mixed with reporting European attitudes to Indian cooking and attitudes toward the appropriateness of missionary work in India. Attitudes on all of these issues appear from Eacott's examples to have differed across individuals.
The corrupting influence of India on Britain is a main theme. The corruption stemmed from English political attempts to control trade with both India and America for the benefit of the English government, and the resulting monopoly powers the government granted to the East India Company. Eacott suggests a significant reason the 13 North American colonies chose to break away from England was they did not want to be exploited by the East India Company as had the Indians of Bengal (Chapter 4). I found this argument overdrawn. Eacott also argues the British government's dependence on the revenue stream from the East India Company forced them to allow a monopoly, which was corrupting. This argument would have been stronger if government granted monopolies were something unusual in this period, but they were not.
Though Eacott, I believe, exaggerates the importance of India, at least for America, he does show that India had a prominent place in the everyday lives and imaginations of English and American individuals. Covering 200 years, he documents how English and Americans thought of India. Given the current political climate, his documentation of the fears about the employment effects of trade with India by merchants and laborers in both England and America were especially interesting. The language of the arguments is remarkably similar to current concerns with globalization. On this point, and as perhaps a warning to policy makers today, I enjoyed how Eacott showed that policy makers’ range of de jure action was limited by smugglers de facto trading.
The value of this book is that it furthers the goal of recognizing that it is not a new experience to live in a global world. The effect of trade with India on Britain has been the subject of previous works, some of which I have noted in this review. The special contribution here is in the comparison it affords between India's effect on Britain to the influence of India on Britain's colonies in America, and how that influence was affected by passing first through Britain, either literally in the case of trade or metaphorically in the case of ideas and impressions.
