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The armament industries have lead the way in the conquest and modernization of the world. One of the key policies of British Empire was to keep manufacturing technology out of the hands of her far flung colonial conquests while denaturing and appropriating any of the native craftsmanship/technology solely for the benefit of the empire. Priya Satia writes about a historical technological divergence that happened around the 1800’s and how that manufactured divide laid the ground work for much of the present economic system and associated cleavages, we have today.

“Bengal, Mysore and Maratha are just three of many places in the Indian subcontinent where Britain at great expense and effort restricted, curtailed or closed down knowledge and capacity for arms manufacturing in India. The near parity between India and Britain in small arms made British conquest of the subcontinent slow, costly and difficult, and made the crushing of indigenous arms manufacture essential.

Perhaps many polities had the potential for industrial growth, but imperial ambition, generating military commitments requiring mass levels of supply, ensured that Britain became the site of industrial take-off – and a global arms depot. In addition to its geological and geographical advantages, Britain had coercive colonial policies enabling jealous control of know-how. Eighteenth-century Britons believed in the government’s right and obligation to use its might to promote industrial prosperity at home and strangle it abroad. We too must recognise the way that war shaped the entwined industrial fates of Britain and its colonies, and the way that power always shapes knowledge-sharing.”

The rest of Satia’s essay is quite heavy on historical specifics, but worth the read if you have the time.