I have been reading Amatav Ghosh's - Smoke and Ashes. I am learning even more about Empire, his recurrent theme. The boston tea party was in part a pushback on the British raising Tea Tax all over the work. This tax on tea was critical to funding the Empire. It paid for the import of tea from China (which had a monopoly) since they had little to trade for the tea so the British paid in bullion when they ran out of bullion (gold and silver) they started growing opium in India and selling it to the Chinese thus enslaving both the producer and the users and paying for that navy and colonial administration.
A bit complicated but Ghosh lays it out beautifully showing that the British industrial revolution and the colonial empire for 200 years was funded by Opium. (Also his Nutmeg's Curse traces the power of big Oil and its interweaving with military power and the growing climate catastrophe.
I have been reading Amatav Ghosh's - Smoke and Ashes. I am learning even more about Empire, his recurrent theme. The boston tea party was in part a pushback on the British raising Tea Tax all over the work. This tax on tea was critical to funding the Empire. It paid for the import of tea from China (which had a monopoly) since they had little to trade for the tea so the British paid in bullion when they ran out of bullion (gold and silver) they started growing opium in India and selling it to the Chinese thus enslaving both the producer and the users and paying for that navy and colonial administration.
A bit complicated but Ghosh lays it out beautifully showing that the British industrial revolution and the colonial empire for 200 years was funded by Opium. (Also his Nutmeg's Curse traces the power of big Oil and its interweaving with military power and the growing climate catastrophe.