England in the Early Middle Ages was rich enough to attract Vikings both to plunder and settle, and Normans to conquer it.
In the High Middle Ages, it was capable of maintaining pretty expensive wars on the continent without going bankrupt.
The UK as a whole exists only since 1707, and by that time, it was already a major power. Did it have a numerous poor population? Yes, much like the US now does. But that is not the same as being a poor country in the sense that Somalia or Timor Leste are.
Didn't the industrial revolution take off in Britain in order to more cheaply/efficiently process the raw material "brought in" from India for making fabrics?
The US Civil War put a damper on the trade volume for a period of time, it came back stronger afterwards.
So successful was the transition of slave labor into sharecropping and tenant farming during and after the war that cotton production actually expanded dramatically.
By 1870, American cotton farmers surpassed their previous harvest high, set in 1860. By 1877, they regained and surpassed their pre-war market share in Great Britain. By 1880 they exported more cotton than they had in 1860.
During the US Civil War cotton volumes went down and mills, mill workers in Lancashire and Cheshire experienced widespread poverty ...
However for a well placed elite few, cotton profits from trade climbed dramatically ..
Despite cotton shortages in England, merchants would sometimes re-export the materials that did arrive to other ports in Europe. Notably, they also re-exported materials from the South to the North, because the Union also struggled from being cut off from direct trade with the Confederacy. As a result, during the war, cotton grown in the Confederacy could be shipped out of a southern port to Britain to evade the Union blockade, sold in Liverpool, and then shipped back across the Atlantic to a northern port, evading the Confederate cruisers.
Liverpool's docks also benefitted as profitable wartime enterprises emerged, particularly the increased trade of commodities such as ships and armaments. The Union's merchant marine, nearly the world's largest in 1860, was devastated throughout the war in part by the Confederate warships supplied through Liverpool. In addition, as a result of the war, cotton speculation and brokerage, rather than trade in cotton itself, became immensely profitable for a number of merchants.
Interesting; I was under the impression that the British just found new sources of cotton. From the American perspective this story is mostly told as a losing bet from the Confederate side—the South believed that Britain was so dependent on Southern cotton that they would intervene on their side of the war. Given the intensity of British public opinion against slavery this seems like a bad bet, but if the Confederates had better judgment they probably wouldn’t have started the war in the first place.
IIRC (I don't have historic trade complexity to hand, I once did for a project some years ago) the British did cultivate new sources (eg India) after experiencing a volume lull for some time.
Over a longer arc the cloth trade itself grew in volume and demand for raw fibre increased, absorbing the post Civil War US production again.
You're correct that public sentiment opposed slavery and that unionised mill workers in England supported a ban on non use of "slave cotton".
What also occurred, as often happens in war, is that a profitable black market trade grew and lined the pockets of many middle men, at the expense of growers who had reduced profits and embargos to deal with and for mill workers who saw less actual work as bale numbers plummeted.
That doesn't really make sense historically. "The UK" is a modern concept relatively speaking, the Act of Union didn't pass until long after the slaving and looting got going.
England was not as overwhelming over Scotland demographically in the past as it is today, and the Scots were eager participants in the colonial venture. In fact, the Act of Union was motivated by the failed Darien Scheme:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darien_scheme#Consequences_of_...
> you just have to acknowledge that to anyone outside England, "England" and "the UK" are identical in meaning.
I'd love to hear the results of you trying that argument in the rougher parts of, say, Glasgow or Swansea. I suspect if you tried it on the wrong person you'd be picking up your teeth with a broken hand.
When talking about history, absolutely, because we're talking about three or four different countries at the time, with different kings, governments, alliances, economies and so on.
Yes. I gave you an example of people outside England who don't think England and the UK are synonymous ie it is a direct refutation.
If you had said "Outside the UK" there might be room to say it's a matter of opinion, but since in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland the vast majority of people would not say England and the UK are the same, your statement is just flat out obviously wrong.
It’s surprising how many people get them mixed up even in the UK.
England is one country of the United Kingdom. Scotland, England and Wales make up the island of Great Britain, the largest of the British Isles. The UK also includes Northern Ireland. Hence: The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Island.
I was confused too, thought that Great Britain referred to the archipelago as a whole (excluding Ireland) rather than the largest island.
I've seen it stated variously that Little Britain is either Ireland, or Brittany.
For a long time I've felt that one of the traditional titles of the Russian czars, "Czar of all the Russias", was cooler than the titles I was aware of for other rulers. I was surprised to find the seal of an English queen on Wikipedia which clearly showed a Latin title translating as "Queen of all the Britains".
The switch from "King of Britain" to "King of the Britains" seems to have occurred during the reign of George III, judging by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Seal_of_the_Realm . None of those include an "all", but I'm sure it was present in the seal I saw.
I have no bias against the UK if that's what you're implying. In fact, I very much like English literature etc. I am just stating the fact that they have historically been a very poor society with a large divide between the haves and have-nots.
That holds for every society historically as the period we are living in is, relative to the history of civilisation, one of incredible wealth and abundance.
The question is - is our current level only an historical blip?
And that is why I don't find China's policy to "steal" IP as offensive as to some western people and hope my country to emulate some. That's how the rich got rich and hoping honesty and hard work will bring you up is naive.
