{"product_id":"9780300278514","title":"Ruthless : A New History of Britain’s Rise to Wealth and Power, 1660-1800","description":"\u003ch3\u003eAuthor: Edmond Smith\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003ch4\u003eUnited Kingdom, Great Britain\u003c\/h4\u003e\u003ch5\u003ePublished on 28 October 2025 by Yale University Press in the United States.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHardback | 464 pages, 15 colour + 11 b-w illus + 3 figs\u003cbr\u003e242 x 165 x 41 | 718g\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/h5\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA revelatory new history of Britain’s industrial revolution and the exploitation that enabled it Was Britain’s industrial revolution the result of its machines, which produced goods with miraculous efficiency? Was it the country’s natural abundance, which provided coal for its engines, ores for its furnaces and food for its labourers? Or was it Britain’s colonies, where a brutalized enslaved workforce produced cotton for its factories? Acclaimed historian Edmond Smith shows how the world’s first industrial nation was founded on the ruthless exploitation of technology, people and the planet. This economic system linked the plantations of the Caribbean with the colossal cotton mills of northern England, applied the innovations of science and agriculture to colonial exploration, and formalised financial markets in self-serving ways. At the heart of these processes were Britons themselves, early capitalists who spun webs of expertise and investment to connect exploitative practices across the globe.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRuthless offers an eye-opening account of Britain’s economic transformation—and the scale and breadth of brutality that it depended upon.   \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Cobham Bookshop","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":55947013325186,"sku":"9780300278514","price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/www.cobhambooks.live\/products\/9780300278514","provider":"Cobham Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}