English historians, until very recently, have been strangely
blind to anything but political history. The Cambridge Mod-
ern History mirrors this attitude admirably. It treats the
main theme of this book almost as an aside. The Industrial
and Commercial Revolutions upon which the greatness of Eng-
land rests, are compressed into a single chapter which is placed



PREFATORY NOTE vii

between one on The Revolution in Poetry and Fiction and
another on economic theory ! Facts in economics are for eco-
nomists. To be sure, all the time business men and statesmen
have recognized with varying insight the political forces con-
centrated in iron and steel and cotton, as one may see from
reading Hansard. Yet historians, bound by an old tradition,
did not bring these elements of empire into their survey. If
historians failed to make this field their own, economists who
have treated the subject historically have generally left some-
thing to be desired, in that their interest in economic theory
has tended to lead the narrative now and again away from
the social and political aspects. Yet the pioneer work of
Toynbee and the comprehensive survey of William Cunning-
ham, to mention only two, have been indispensable guides.
