Empire of Guns: The Violent Making of the Industrial Revolution by Priya Satia (review)

In 1795, the Society of Friends insisted that a prominent member, Samuel Galton Jr. of Birmingham, cease manufacturing guns or sever ties with their fellowship. Was anti-gun activism simply an outgrowth of Quaker pacifism? This case was more interesting. Samuel Galton Jr. was one of Britain's most prominent entrepreneurs. He was more than just the grandfather of the eugenicist Francis Galton. He was a member of England's great salon, the Lunar Society. He was acquainted with such luminaries of industrialization as James Watt, Joseph Priestley, and Matthew Boulton. In addition, Galton's gunmaking fortune made a large impact: not only were his guns produced and sold by the thousands, the earnings were invested in the Galton Bank, which later became the Midland Bank. Galton moved in the same Quaker banking circle as the Lloyds and the Barclays. Together they financed much of Britain's commerce and manufacturing. Priya Satia's research in Galton's papers reveals that he defended his gun business against his Quaker critics by stating, in the strongest terms, that many co-religionists were involved in the gun trade too, benefiting from it directly or indirectly. Also, Galton claimed that guns had many useful purposes related to personal security and national defense.

This fine history recreates the world of gun manufacturing in Birmingham and London, showing the many ways that gun parts were manufactured by small firms, then assembled by contractors like Galton. These small producers did not just produce gun parts; rather, they produced a variety of metal goods, ranging from coins to pots and pans. Gun manufacturers like Galton purchased parts and assembled guns, and they depended on contracts with the British government and the East India Company. State demand for guns remained robust, since this was a time when the British were almost always involved in war. Satia reminds us that the Seven Years' War, the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and the Napoleonic Wars were total wars. Millions of guns were produced in England, so that even with normal depreciation and deterioration, world markets became saturated. Satia traces the spread of guns in British India and North America as well as West Africa, where inferior weapons were often sold by way of the slave trade. Galton's argument—that many people, including Quakers, supported the gun trade—was empirically true.

Satia moves confidently back and forth between economic and cultural history and writes with equal confidence about several continents. While answering narrow questions about Galton, she has produced a global historical anthropology of the gun. She uses her findings to challenge some of technological history's best-known orthodoxies. Most accounts of the Industrial Revolution emphasize the importance of free enterprise and ever-larger factories. Satia emphasizes the importance of government intervention and small-scale manufacturing. She reminds us that in Britain at this time, state influence was so pervasive that there was no way to distinguish private enterprise from public institutions. The interlocking of private and public efforts resulted in many of the technical and organizational changes that she describes. Satia writes that "there is no counterfactual of a peaceful eighteenth century in which the British economy would have industrialized" (p. 16). Proponents of liberal political economy face contradiction throughout this book. Satia engages social-scientific theory successfully, marshaling a broad range of evidence to challenge conventional thinking. What makes this study enjoyable to read, though, is Satia's storytelling. She begins with a personal account about the impact of guns on her family. She unearths well-hidden tales from archival documents, while revisiting better-known works by Captain Cook, Daniel Defoe, and Rudyard Kipling.

As these stories accumulate, Satia demonstrates that by the end of the eighteenth century, the social and cultural context for firearms had shifted considerably. Previously, guns had been used for personal protection and for military service, but by the time the Quakers tried to ostracize Galton, guns were being used...