Empire and Globalisation: Networks of People, Goods and Capital in the British World, c. 1850–1914 by Gary B. Magee, Andrew S. Thompson (review)

Recent scholarship has reinvigorated debates surrounding the impact of globalisation on the world economy prior to the First World War. In Empire and Globalisation, Gary B. Magee and Andrew S. Thompson link the development of the nineteenth-century global economy to an older theme in international economic history: the formation and maintenance of the British Empire. To connect these themes, the authors combine insights from the economics of information with extensive historical evidence surrounding the formation of international networks which served as the carriers of information that made feasible the operation of global markets in labour, capital, and commodities. The book argues that networks were equally fundamental in the maintenance of British identity and in the transmission of tastes and ideas between the colonies and the metropolis.

Between introductory and concluding sections, the book features five chapters, with the first two laying out the conceptual structure that guides the reading of the historical record in the following three. “Reconfiguring Empire: The British World” introduces the concepts of imperial networks and “Britishness” and explains how these mattered for the development of a British/Anglophone world (5). The second chapter, “Networks and the British World,” introduces the reader to the economics of networks and the ways in which these information channels serve to generate the social capital thought to underpin much cooperative behaviour in economic development. A key argument made here is that one consequence of network-based interaction was the rise of co-ethnic economic integration, with the gains of nineteenth-century globalisation shared mainly by those who were well connected to the trunk lines of the British world economy.

The third chapter, “Overseas Migration,” assesses the role of international population movements in creating the networks sustaining the British world. The authors outline the motivations of migration, pecuniary or otherwise, and the role of networks in providing reliable information to guide the decision whether to migrate and which destination to choose. The chapter describes the role of state and charitable organisations in channelling migration flows. Perhaps the most interesting information comes in the remittance data that the authors have unearthed from postal records, which show sustained and substantial financial flows between the New World and the metropolis.

“Markets and Consumer Cultures” traces the ways in which network connections helped British exporters develop opportunities in colonial markets. The authors argue that trade flows were somewhat responsive to imperial policies, but that more important were private, personal networks that facilitated trade between Britain and the periphery of settler economies. Diasporas, local chambers of commerce, and international exhibitions played an important role in promoting trade and awareness of British consumer culture around the globe. The final chapter, “Information and Investment,” begins by establishing the large flows of capital out of Britain and into destination economies around the world. This section shows how networks facilitated large outflows, and how more extensive connections between dominions and colonies allowed these to acquire capital from Britain at lower interest rates than other foreign borrowers.

Empire and Globalisation has many strengths. The authors show an impressive grasp of at least two major historical literatures. Evidence of their breadth of knowledge is apparent in an impressively comprehensive bibliography, copious footnotes, and more crucially in the thoughtful treatment of a wide range of issues related to globalisation, the economics of empire, and the role of networks in a crucial period of British and world history. The authors identify numerous channels through which network connections should underpin the commodity and factor movements associated with globalisation, and use a combination of qualitative and quantitative evidence to show the ways in which these connections steered the process of international economic integration. Unlike many studies of historical globalisation that focus exclusively on changes in volume or price, Magee and...