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Secondary sources can be used for a variety of purposes. Understanding the usefulness and reliability of a source is dependent on being able to explain those purposes and audiences. Some books are written for a popular audience to entertain as well as inform, while others are written for a scholarly audience to further understanding in an academic discipline.

Between 1750 and 1900, environmental factors contributed to the global economy.

India was the world's leading supplier of cotton textiles for hundreds of years. By the late 18th century, the Industrial Revolution and a new source of cotton from America had allowed Britain to flood the market with inexpensive textiles, pushing independent Indian textile artisans out of business. By the late 19th century, India was only producing cotton for Britain. After Britain's textile factories processed India's cotton, the colonial government sold some of its factory-made or "finished" textiles back to the Indian subcontinent at inflated prices.

opium was an important raw material for Britain. Britain made a lot of money selling it to the Chinese because it was easy to grow on South Asia's fertile lands. Lin Zexu wrote to Queen Victoria that the Chinese objected to opium being exported to their country. The Chinese paid a heavy price for trying to stop the opium trade.

Between the late 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, the agricultural influence and power of raw materials shifted from Asia and Latin America to industrialized states such as Britain, the United States, France, Japan, and Germany. The main resources were people, raw materials, and refined materials. Cash crops and mineral resources were produced on a large scale.

The British and Dutch took over the spice trade in Asia after England's defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588.

The company ran into opposition from the Dutch. By the mid-1600s cotton and silk textiles from India had replaced spices as the East India Company's major import, and by the 1700s the company dominated the world textile trade. Indian weavers learned how to make fabrics that appeal to Europeans. The demand for finished Indian textiles decreased after the Industrial Revolution when India began supplying raw cotton to the textile mills of Britain.

In the second half of the 18th century, it switched from shipping to agricultural production. The Dutch government took control of the Dutch East Indies after the company's charter was revoked.

If villagers had no land, they had to work in a government field for 66 days or set aside 20% of their rice fields for export crops such as sugar, coffee, or indigo. The villagers were responsible for the loss if the crops failed. The practice was abolished in 1870.

Porcelain, silk, and tea were in high demand in Great Britain. British silver reserves became low because the Chinese were not interested in British goods.

Millions of people became addicted to the illegal drug when the company sold it for silver. The company used its profits to buy things.

opium was criminalized by the Chinese emperor in 1729. The ban had no effect. The British opium warehouse was seized by the Chinese government. British warships destroyed a Chinese blockade keeping ships from Canton, the only port China allowed to trade with foreigners. The British captured Nanking after attacking and occupying Canton.

The fate of nonindustrialized nations was revealed by the conflict between Britain and China. The shift in the balance of power was not anticipated by China. Industrialized nations in Europe would begin to dominate and defeat states that lacked the military technology needed to stand against British steamships and weaponry.

The British wanted to include opium trade in free trade with the Chinese.

Britain and China were not completely satisfied with the treaty. The British wanted opium to be legalized, while the Chinese were unhappy with the concessions they had to make. In October 1856, Hostilities erupted after Chinese officers boarded a British trading ship, searched it, and arrested some Chinese sailors. The French joined the British in the second Opium War. The Treaty of Tientsin allowed foreign envoys to reside in Beijing, opened several new ports to Western trade and allowed freedom of movement for Christian missionaries. opium was legalized and Chinaceded to Britain the southern portion of Kowloon Peninsula, which was adjacent to Hong Kong.

Britain gained trading privileges after winning the Opium Wars.

The Open Door policy proposed by the United States allowed for a system of trade in China to be open to all countries in order to keep one power from total control of China.

Before colonization, most farming in Africa was to raise food crops. After colonization, land that had been devoted to growing food was converted to cash crop production to provide raw materials for European industries and goods for European markets. The Africans received cotton textiles, canned food, and alcoholic beverages. The colonies were dependent on the imperial powers for their trade structure.

Cash crops such as cotton would increase the value of the land as food production declined.

The most arable land was devoted to growing crops for export.

Cotton accounted for 93 percent of Egypt's exports by the end of the century.

The Kikuyu were moved to reserves with poor soil and bad climates. Most Africans were forced to relocate because the colonial government gave the land to white settlers. Cheap labor was provided for white farmers by those who remained. African farmers were not allowed to grow some cash crops, such as coffee and tea.

The region became the largest cocoa producer in the world. Cocoa was an important cash crop in Nigeria and the Portuguese colonies of Sao Tome and Angola.

Before colonization, West Africa exported palm oil, palm kernels, and peanuts. The machines of the industrial revolution in Europe used it as a lubricant.

Slavery continued in Africa even after the British colonies banned it in 1833. The French army used enslaved people as payment for African soldiers, and the French colonial administrators used enslaved people for many of their staff. Slave raiding and trading was not allowed in most of Africa until 1912. Slavery was legalized in Africa in the first quarter of the 20th century.

Slave labor was used to produce many of the cash crops, such as oil palms, coffee, and cocoa.

Some companies felt a moral responsibility to oppose the use of enslaved people in the production of raw materials. Cash crop production in French-ruled colonies in Africa came about as a result of the end of the slave trade in the French Empire in 1848, along with the economic transformation brought about in France by the Industrial Revolution. After the slave trade was exposed, the company stopped buying cocoa from Portuguese African colonies.

Opium addiction weakened many people in China.

Huge amounts of silver went to Britain to pay for opium, which weakened China's economy.

Cotton became central to the global and other Egypt, Sudan slave economy.

As farmers switched to growing cotton, European food supplies declined.

European powers faced native resistance.

Railroads and pathways were created by the Imperial states.

Europe and the United States attacked Latin America in the second half of the 19th century. As the industrialized nations of Europe and the United States sought new markets for their goods, the "new imperialism" was concerned with a world capitalist economy. Latin America's emerging middle classes were looking for the latest European news.

Britain replaced Spain as Latin America's major trading partner. Britain became the largest investor in Latin America, followed by France and Germany. Between 1870 and 1919, Europeans invested over $10 billion in Latin America.

Britain and France were established world powers while the United States was not. The Second Industrial Revolution brought prosperity to the young republic. Mexico and Cuba were the first places where U.S. corporate investments were concentrated.

Infrastructure and industry were supported by these investments. They funded meat processing and packing plants. The Monroe Doctrine told the world that Latin America was in the U.S. sphere of influence.

Ten percent of British foreign investment was in Argentina. British investors, entrepreneurs, and business leaders helped turn Argentina into the richest country in Latin America and one of the dozen richest in the world by the outbreak of World War I. The railroad and telegraph systems were financed by them. Because of its location on the shallow Rio de la Plata, Buenos Aires needed to build a new port to facilitate passenger service and the massive import and export of goods and services. The British designed and financed the new port.

The region of present-day Chile was colonized by Spain between 1540 and 1818. The export of agricultural produce was the main source of economic development in the country. Spain was dependent on the wealth of these raw materials. Chile's exports would be dominated by copper. The mining sector makes up for more than one third of the government's income.

Brazil used to have a booming rubber industry.

People began growing rubber in Malaysia at a lower cost. The shift of rubber production showed how trade was organized to the advantage of companies based in Europe and the United States. Prosperity was brought to some regions by economic competition.

The governments of foreign investors often acted as strong men to help them achieve their goals.

The United Fruit Company was an American corporation that traded in tropical fruit, primarily bananas, grown on Latin American plantations and sold in the United States and Europe. The United Fruit Company allied itself with large landowners to pressure governments to maintain favorable conditions for the company. Small Central American countries are described under the economic power of foreign corporations. The banana republics were politically unstable states with an economy dependent on exporting bananas or minerals.

Imperial control over territories and transportation networks in Central America, the Caribbean coast of Colombia, and the West Indies continued as companies sought political dominance to gain monopolies over natural resources.

The power of investments to transform and dominate small or weak states can be seen in the Pacific islands. In 1893, a group of American businesses and sugar planters in Hawaii tried to overthrow the constitutional monarchy in order to get the islands annexed by the United States. Hawaii became a territory of the United States in 1898.

The Industrial Revolution developed the demand for raw materials and the technological ability through steamships, railroads, and military weapons to control other territories. The stage was set for economic imperialism.

According to the Laws of the Chinese Empire, opium can't be brought into the country and it's liable to be seized. The Queen of England does not want her subjects to be protected from the consequences of their actions in foreign countries.

The East India Company ceased to be a conventional corporation, trading and silks and spices, at this moment. Within a few years, 250 company clerks backed by the military force of 20,000 Indian soldiers had become the rulers of Bengal. An international corporation was turning into a colonial power.

The phrase "British conquering India" disguises a more sinister reality. It was not the British government that seized India at the end of the 18th century, but a dangerously unregulated private company based in one small office, five windows wide, in London, and managed in India by Robert Clive.

The EIC had only 35 permanent employees in its head office when it was founded 100 years ago. The military conquest, subjugation and plunder of vast tracts of southern Asia was executed by the skeleton staff.

It's the greatest act of corporate violence in the history of the world. The power wielded by the world's largest corporations is tame compared to the power wielded by the East India Company.