Creating British Global Leadership: The Liberal Trading Community from 1750 to 1792

This paper explores the process by which Great Britain rose to a position of global leadership in the 1800s. It examines the critical period from 1750 to 1792 when Great Britain moved from global leadership based on colonial/mercantile power to leadership based on industrial/commercial power. I hypothesize that the roots of the Pax Britannica of 1815-1873 have their source in the emerging liberal trading community created by the British in the fifty years before the Revolutionary and Napoleon...