by Chris Harman
83 H Heller, Poverty , pp246–247.
84 G B Elton, in his standard work Reformation Europe , can claim, ‘Nowhere did it [Calvinism] owe its original reception or its wider successes to … to any imagined advantages for middle class economic ambitions’, p234.
85 This certainly happened to their ‘foreign’ allies. There was bitter opposition in Strasbourg – still then part of the empire – to an alliance with Calvinist nobles who wanted to buy the bishopric of the town for one of their juvenile kin. See J Abray, The People’s Reformation .
86 For a very good selection of the contending interpretations, see T K Rabb (ed), The Thirty Years War (Boston, 1965).
87 They also played an important part in the progress of science and technology by carrying knowledge of certain post-Renaissance European discoveries to China. See C A Ronan and L Needham, The Shorter Science and Civilisation of China , vol 4 (Cambridge, 1994), p220.
88 A G Dickens, The Age of Humanism and Reformation in Europe (London, 1977), p202.
89 H V Polisensky, The Thirty Years War (London, 1974), p28.
90 H V Polisensky, Thirty , p31.
91 Adherents to the Hussite belief that priests had no special part to play in the communion rites.
92 H V Polisensky, Thirty , p47.
93 G Parker, Europe in Crisis, 1598–1648 (London, 1984), p168.
94 Quoted in G Parker, Europe in Crisis , p168.
95 For details of this connection, see H V Polisensky, Thirty , pp141, 186–187.
96 See the comments of the German Marxist Franz Mehring, writing 90 years ago, in F Mehring, Absolutism and Revolution in Germany, 1525–1848 (London, 1975), p28.
97 The assassination – and the way in which Wallenstein’s own vacillations allowed it to happen – form the basis of two plays by the German Enlightenment writer Frederick Schiller, The Piccolomini and The Death of Wallenstein , in F Schiller, Historical and Dramatic Works , vol 2 (London, 1980).
98 H V Polisensky, Thirty , p197.
99 See H V Polisensky, Thirty , p245.
100 See H V Polisensky, Thirty , pp245–247, for a full account of the deterioration in Bohemia’s economic and cultural life.
101 For arguments over the degree of damage done by the war, see the pieces by G Pages, S H Steinberg, H V Polisensky and T K Rabb in T K Rabb (ed), The Thirty Years War .
102 Although a good deal of the shock among the ruling classes was hypocritical since, as Voltaire later pointed out in his Lettres Philosophiques , several European monarchs had been executed previously.
103 According to C Hill, ‘The English Revolution and the Brotherhood of Man’, in C Hill, Puritanism and Revolution (London, 1968), p126.
104 Quoted by C Hill, God’s Englishman (Harmondsworth, 1973), p87.
105 R S Duplessis, Transitions , p68; see also G Parker, Europe in Crisis , table 1, p23.
106 See R S Duplessis, Transitions , pp113–115.
107 John Dillingham to Lord Montagu, quoted in A Fletcher, The Outbreak of the English Civil War (London, 1981), p182.
108 A Fletcher, The Outbreak , p182.
109 John Tailor in his New Preacher News tract, quoted in A Fletcher, The Outbreak , p175.
110 Quoted in C Hill, God’s Englishman , p62.
111 Quoted in C Hill, The Century of Revolution, 1603–1714 (London, 1969), p116.
112 This summary of one of his addresses is provided by I Gentles, The New Model Army (Oxford, 1992), p84.
113 C Hill, God’s Englishman , pp68–69.
114 Quoted in I Gentles, New Model Army , p160.
115 See I Gentles, New Model Army , pp161–163.
116 Quoted in I Gentles, New Model Army , p209.
117 Quoted in I Gentles, New Model Army , p209.
118 Quoted in B Manning, The Crisis of the English Revolution (London, 1992), p108.
119 Quoted in C Hill, God’s Englishman , p105.
120 Quoted in I Gentles, New Model Army , p330.
121 C Hill, God’s Englishman , p97.
122 According to C Hill, The Century of Revolution , p181.
123 The town known today known as ‘Old Goa’.
124 Close to the present-day town of Hampi.
125 Quoted by V A Smith, The Oxford History of India (Oxford, 1985), p312.
126 These are the battles depicted in Kurasawa’s film Ran .
127 J Gernet, A History of Chinese Civilisation (Cambridge, 1996), p424. See also, ‘Introduction’ to F W Mote and D Twitchett (eds), Cambridge History of China , vol 7 (Cambridge, 1988), pp508–509.
128 J Gernet, History , p426.
129 J Gernet, History , p442. Just as medieval Europe had learnt from China, Chinese intellectuals and technicians were now acquiring, from a Jesuit mission in Beijing, advances in knowledge from post-Renaissance Europe. See C A Ronan and J Needham, The Shorter Science and Civilisation of China , vol 4 (Cambridge, 1994), pp220–221.
130 J Gernet, History , p440.
131 J Gernet, History , p437.
132 J Gernet, History , p446.
133 Although Ronan and Needham (see C A Ronan and J Needham, Shorter Science , pp1, 34) suggest the influence of the European Renaissance was of vital importance in seventeenth-century China.
134 J Gernet, History , p425.
135 J Gernet, History , p426.
136 J Gernet, History , p426.
137 F W Mote and D Twitchett, Cambridge , vol 7, p587.
138 Estimates given in J Gernet, History , p429, and F W Mote and D Twitchett, Cambridge , vol 7, p586.
139 F W Mote and D Twitchett, Cambridge , vol 7, p586.
140 Quoted in F W Mote and D Twitchett, Cambridge , vol 7, p631.
141 F W Mote and D Twitchett, Cambridge , vol 7, p632.
142 This is the argument of Geoffrey Parker in G Parker, Europe in Crisis , pp17–22.
143 F W Mote and D Twitchett, Cambridge , vol 7, p587.
144 The reason for ending the voyages was not only resistance to the growth of merchant influence. The voyages were costly to the state and China had little need of the sorts of goods to be found in the Indian Ocean – or for that matter in Europe. The empire exported much more than it imported until the rise of the opium trade in the nineteenth century.
145 F W Mote and D Twitchett, Cambridge , vol 7, p518.
146 J Gernet, History , p431.
147 According to J Gernet, History , p432.
148 For details, see J Gernet, History , pp432–433.
149 J Gernet, History , p483.
150 Figures given in J Gernet, History , p489.
151 J Gernet, History , p464.
152 J Gernet, History , p497.
153 See J Gernet, History , pp497–505 – although Gernet himself, for some reason, uses the term ‘enlightened’ to describe the culture of the subsequent period of acceptance of Manchu rule.
154 J Gernet, History , p505.
155 J Gernet, History , p507.
156 Details from J Gernet, History , p508.
157 J Gernet, History , p509.
158 See J Gernet, History , for a much fuller account of the symptoms of crisis.
159 One mistake of Marx in his writings on India was to overemphasise the importance of these. Irfan Habib, who is otherwise complimentary about these writings, insists, ‘Despite Marx, it is impossible to believe that the state’s construction and control of irrigation works was a prominent feature of the agrarian life of Moghul India.’ I Habib, The Agrarian System of Mughal India (London, 1963), p256.
160 For a more detailed account of the relation between the Mogul officials and the zamindars , see I Habib, Agrarian , pp66, 153–185.
161 Manriques, quoted in I Habib, Agrarian , pp322–323.
162 I Habib, Agrarian , p250. The state took much more of the surplus than did the zamindars . See I Habib, Agrarian , p153.
163 H K Naqvi, Mughal Hindustan: Cities and Industries, 1556–1803 (Karachi, 1974).
164 According to S Maqvi, ‘Marx on Pre-Bri
tish Indian Society’, in D D Kosambi Commemoration Committee (eds), Essays in Honour of D D Kosambi, Science and Human Progress (Bombay, 1974).
165 H K Naqvi, Mughal , p2.
166 According to H K Naqvi, Mughal , p18.
167 H K Naqvi, Mughal , p22; I Habib, Agrarian , p75.
168 I Habib, Agrarian , p76.
169 I Habib, ‘Problems in Marxist Historical Analysis’, in D D Kosambi , p73.
170 H K Naqvi, Mughal , p155.
171 H K Naqvi, Mughal , p171.
172 I Habib, ‘Problems’, p46.
173 Pelsaert, quoted in I Habib, Agrarian , p190.
174 I Habib, Agrarian , p77.
175 D D Kosambi, ‘Introduction’, in D D Kosambi , p387. Kosambi uses the term ‘feudalism’ to describe society in this period. Irfan Habib denies the validity of this after at least 1200 AD, given the absence of serfdom and of a real landlord class, with the great mass of the surplus being changed into money to pay taxes. See I Habib, ‘Problems’, p46.
176 I Habib, Agrarian , p320.
177 Quoted in I Habib, Agrarian , p321.
178 I Habib, Agrarian , p328.
179 Aurangzeb deposed his father and locked him in a tower in Agra’s fort, from which he could see his magnificent monument (and folly), the Taj Mahal.
180 A contemporary witness, quoted in H K Naqvi, Mughal , p23.
181 Quoted in I Habib, Agrarian , p330.
182 Details in I Habib, Agrarian , p333
183 I Habib, Agrarian , p333.
184 I Habib, Agrarian , p333.
185 I Habib, Agrarian , p333.
186 H K Naqvi, Mughal , p18.
187 Quoted in I Habib, Agrarian , p339.
188 I Habib, Agrarian , pp344–345.
189 I Habib, Agrarian , p346.
190 I Habib, Agrarian , p333.
191 There are significant arguments among historians of India over why the bourgeoisie did not assert itself. Some argue that it was simply too weak because of the economic stagnation. Others argue it did not fight independently because it saw the East India Company as a tool for achieving its goals. I am not knowledgeable enough to comment on this controversy. I do not think it alters the fundamental point – that it failed to act independently and then suffered because the East India Company acted according to goals arrived at in London, not India.
192 I Habib, Agrarian , p351.
Part five: The spread of the new order
1 See, for instance, G Rudé, Europe in the Eighteenth Century (Harvard, 1985), p23, and R S Duplessis, Transitions to Capitalism in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 1997), p174.
2 See, for instance, G Rudé, Europe , p23; and R S Duplessis, Transitions , p174.
3 Figures from R S Duplessis, Transitions , pp242, 248.
4 D Defoe, A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain (London, 1912), quoted in G Rudé, Europe , p58.
5 For a summary account of these inventions, see D Landes, Wealth , pp187–191.
6 Figures in R S Duplessis, Transitions , pp88, 242.
7 J de L Mann, The Cloth Industry in the West of England (Oxford, 1971), pp23, 90–91.
8 Keith Thomas provides a lengthy but very accessible account of all these beliefs and how they fitted into people’s experience of material life. See K Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (Harmondsworth, 1978), and also C Ginsburg, Night Battles (Baltimore, 1983).
9 For a very accessible account of the development outlined in this paragraph, see I B Cohen, The Birth of the New Physics (London, 1961).
10 Quoted in G de Santillana, The Age of Adventure (New York, 1956), p158.
11 See K Thomas, Religion .
12 For the limitations of Galileo’s account – and for the problematic nature of some of his experiments – see I B Cohen, Birth , pp91–129.
13 I B Cohen, Birth , p158. Robert Munchenbled argues that the spread of witchcraft prosecutions was a result of attempts by the groups who controlled the state to establish their control over the rural population. See, for instance, R Munchenbled, Sorcières, Justice et Société (Paris, 1987), pp9–10.
14 K Thomas, Religion , p598.
15 See K Thomas, Religion , pp533, 537.
16 According to C Hill, A Century of Revolution , p250.
17 Quoted in K Thomas, Religion , p692.
18 This can lead to differing accounts of what exactly constituted the Enlightenment. So, for example, Ernst Cassirer (E Cassirer, The Philosophy of the Enlightenment (Boston, 1955)) counts the rationalist philosophers from Descartes onwards as part of the Enlightenment; by contrast George Rudé (G Rudé, Europe ) sees the Enlightenment as starting with a reaction, inspired by John Locke, against these philosophers.
19 Leibniz accepted Newton’s mathematical formulations, but rejected his overall model of the universe.
20 For an account of the salons, see P Naville, D’Holbach et la Philosophie Scientifique au XVIIIe Siècle (Paris, 1967), pp46–48.
21 Quoted in P Naville, Philosophie , p118–119.
22 According to G Rudé, Europe , p131.
23 G Rudé, Europe , p132.
24 P Naville, Philosophie , p73.
25 D Outram, The Enlightenment (Cambridge, 1995), p75. By contrast the Swedish naturalist Linnaeus laid down a tight division into four races based on colour.
26 G Rudé, Europe , pp135–136. The motive of the monarchies was to ensure their own control over the national churches. The effect, however, was to weaken a major institution propagating reactionary ideas.
27 Quoted in P Gay, The Enlightenment (New York, 1977), p71.
28 R Darnton, The Business of the Enlightenment (Harvard, 1979), p528.
29 R Darnton, Business , p526.
30 According to G Rudé, Europe , p170.
31 I Kant, quoted in G Rudé, Europe , p171.
32 Jakarta.
33 This is Blackburn’s estimate in R Blackburn, The Making of New World Slavery (London, 1997), p3. There are other estimates which are a little smaller or a little larger. For a long discussion of the numbers involved, see P Manning, Slavery and African Life (Cambridge, 1990), p104.
34 P Manning, Slavery , p35.
35 P Manning, Slavery , p30.
36 See A Calder, Revolutionary Empire (New York, 1981), pp257–258; Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel Kidnapped begins with such a kidnapping in mid-eighteenth-century Scotland.
37 R Blackburn, Making , p230.
38 A Calder, Revolutionary , p566.
39 Barry Unsworth’s novel, Sacred Hunger (London, 1992), provides a very good feeling of what the slaves and the sailors had in common.
40 A Calder, Revolutionary , p289.
41 R Blackburn, Making , p231.
42 For details, see R Blackburn, Making , pp240–241.
43 So Blackburn’s acount of the rebellion (in R Blackburn, Making , pp256–258) stresses the involvement of African slaves, while Calder (A Calder, Revolutionary , pp311–312) only refers to the anti-Indian dimension and does not mention the slave involvement.
44 R Blackburn, Making , p264.
45 There is a black and white reproduction of this painting in R Blackburn, Making , p32.
46 See R Blackburn, Making , pp254–255, 264–265.
47 J Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Oxford, 1975), pp606–607, quoted in R Blackburn, Making , p329.
48 This, for instance, was the argument made by Francis Moore, a former factor for the Royal Africa Company in Gambia, in a work published in 1738. See A Calder, Revolutionary , p454.
49 Many of the best-known Enlightenment figures, like Adam Smith, Condorcet and Benjamin Franklin, opposed slavery, even if some, like Hume, accepted the notion of the innate mental inferiority of Africans.
50 W E Washburn and B Trigger, ‘Native Peoples in Euro-American Historiography’, in W E Washburn and B Trigger (eds), Cambridge History of Native Peoples of the Americas , vol 1, part 1 (Cambridge, 1996), p74.
51 W E Washburn and B Trigger, ‘Native’, p75
.
52 W E Washburn and B Trigger, ‘Native’, p79.
53 W E Washburn and B Trigger, ‘Native’, p80.
54 P Manning, Slavery , p13. There is a very useful summary of the different arguments in R Blackburn, Making , ch 12.
55 P Matthias, The First Industrial Nation (London, 1983), p168.
56 The pattern of trade was, of course, more complicated than this. But it sums up certain essential features.
57 P Manning, Slavery , p22.
58 P Manning, Slavery , p34.
59 P Manning, Slavery , p85.
60 P Manning, Slavery , p23.
61 For Smith’s relations with the European Enlightenment, see I Simpson Ross, The Life of Adam Smith (Oxford, 1995).
62 A Smith, The Wealth of Nations (Harmondsworth, 1982), p433.
63 A Smith, Wealth , pp104, 133.
64 A Smith, Wealth , pp430–431.
65 A Smith, Wealth , p488.
66 E Roll, History of Economic Thought (London, 1962), p151.
67 A Smith, Wealth , p168.
68 A Smith, Wealth , p169.
Part six: The world turned upside down
1 See E Wright, Benjamin Franklin and the American Revolution , pp71, 90.
2 R A Ryerson, The Revolution Is Now Begun; the Radical Committees in Philadelphia, 1765–76 (Philadelphia, 1978), pp3–4.
3 E Countryman, The American Revolution (London, 1986), p71.
4 Theodore Draper has documented this at length in his A Struggle for Power (London, 1996).
5 E Countryman, American Revolution , p97.
6 E Countryman, American Revolution , pp98, 100.
7 E Countryman, American Revolution , p100.
8 E Countryman, American Revolution , p103.
9 E Countryman, American Revolution , p103, and E Countryman, A People in Revolution (Baltimore, 1981), p30.
10 E Countryman, American Revolution , p103.
11 Quoted in E Wright, Benjamin Franklin , p116.
12 Quoted in E Countryman, American Revolution , pp70–71.
13 E Countryman, American Revolution , p4.
14 E Countryman, American Revolution , pp113–114.
15 E Countryman, A People , pp102, 125–126.
16 E Countryman, A People , p102. See also his account of Massachusetts in E Countryman, American Revolution , p118, and R A Ryerson’s account of Philadelphia in The Revolution .
17 Quoted in J Keane, Tom Paine, a Political Life (London, 1995).