Breaking into the Monopoly

Based on a number of historical documents, Breaking into the Monopoly examines how the commercial pressure groups of Glasgow, Liverpool, and Manchester organised nationwide campaigns to break into the British East India Company’s monopoly for free access to Asian markets from 1812-1813 and 1829-1833. The analysis includes various aspects of the campaigners’ motives, strategies, methods, and networks, as well as their relationship with the London mercantile society in nineteenth-century Britain. The author, Yukihisa Kumagai, brings new insights to the question regarding the connection between the rapidly growing provincial mercantile and manufacturing interests and Britain’s economic and imperial policies during the Industrial Revolution.