IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/reveco/v16y1998i01p195-231_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

British Imperialism in a Mercantilist Age, 1492–1849: Conceptual Issues and Empirical Problems

Author

Listed:
  • Engerman, Stanley L.

Abstract

Writing on the eve of one of the major transformations in the British Empire, Adam Smith more or less repeated the remark made by the Abbé Raynal several years earlier that «the discovery of America, and that of passage to the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope, are the two greatest and most important events recorded in the history of mankind»l. Both of these great events of the 1490's, Columbus's discovery of the Americas and the sailing to India, a few years later, by Vasco de Gama, had no immediate impact on the British economy, but the opening up of this wider world for colonization and trading would soon have profound impacts on Britain and the other nations of Western Europe. In the same decade Britain, however, did make its first claim to New World territory, when John Cabot landed on Newfoundland in 1497, but it was to be about a century before title was clear and setdement begun. Not the first to establish an empire, the British rose to world-wide dominance over the course of the next three centuries.

Suggested Citation

  • Engerman, Stanley L., 1998. "British Imperialism in a Mercantilist Age, 1492–1849: Conceptual Issues and Empirical Problems," Revista de Historia Económica / Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(1), pages 195-231, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:cup:reveco:v:16:y:1998:i:01:p:195-231_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0212610900007102/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kevin H. O'Rourke, Leandro Prados de la Escosura and Guilllaume Daudin, 2008. "Trade and Empire, 1700-1870," The Institute for International Integration Studies Discussion Paper Series iiisdp249, IIIS.
    2. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/6149 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. repec:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/6149 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Costa, Leonor Freire & Palma, Nuno & Reis, Jaime, 2013. "The great escape? The contribution of the empire to Portugal’s economic growth, 1500-1800," IFCS - Working Papers in Economic History.WH wp13-07, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Instituto Figuerola.
    5. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/6149 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Casson, Mark & Dark, Ken & Gulamhussen, Mohamed Azzim, 2009. "Extending internalisation theory: From the multinational enterprise to the knowledge-based empire," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 236-256, June.
    7. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/6149 is not listed on IDEAS

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:reveco:v:16:y:1998:i:01:p:195-231_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/rhe .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.