About this item
By a prize-winning young historian, an authoritative work that reframes the Industrial Revolution, the expansion of British empire, and emergence of industrial capitalism by presenting them as inextricable from the gun tradeWe have long understood the Industrial Revolution as a triumphant story of innovation and technology. Empire of Guns, a rich and ambitious new book by award-winning historian Priya Satia, upends this conventional wisdom by placing war and Britain's prosperous gun trade at the heart of the Industrial Revolution and the state's imperial expansion.Satia brings to life this bustling industrial society with the story of a scandal: Samuel Galton of Birmingham, one of Britain's most prominent gunmakers, has been condemned by his fellow Quakers, who argue that his profession violates the society's pacifist principles.
About the Author
Priya Satia is the Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History and Professor of British History at Stanford University. She specializes in modern British and British empire history, especially in the Middle East and South Asia. She is the author of Spies in Arabia: The Great War and the Cultural Foundations of Britain's Covert Empire in the Middle East (2009) , and her writing has appeared in Slate, the Financial Times, the Nation, and the Huffington Post, among other publications.
