The Web of Empire: English Cosmopolitans in an Age of Expansion, 1560-1660 Book

An outstanding contribution to the history literature dealing with the contributions of the common man and woman to the development of the world we know today. The research supporting this book is wide-ranging and detailed. The writing is deft, and the thesis strongly argued. That thesis is that individual world travelers, merchants, clerics, mariners, soldiers, administrators, and recreational travelers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries played a foundational role in creating the British Empire. Their travel required coping with people and environments that were alien and often hostile. Yet it was their successful encounters with these people and environments that allowed trade to begin between England and the Mediterranean, Africa, Asia, and North America. These travelers shared their knowledge and experience with other travelers and with people at home, including government officials. Eventually "the repeated movement of people wove a dense web with London at the center, and thickening linkages of personnel and knowledge continued to inform all subsequent ventures." What developed were several strategies for securing commercial access and profitable trade. Not all of these strategies could be easily applied due to local circumstances, but one that had great success was employing a cosmopolitan approach to the local officials and merchants by being open to new ways, different religions, and new modes of social interaction.

By the mid-seventeenth century, under Oliver Cromwell and his brutal war in Ireland, the policy changed from a private sector driven commercial enterprise to a state-centered effort to secure control of lands and people around the world. Even English citizens were viewed as pawns to be relocated around the world to populate colonies that did not want to be colonies. By this time England had obtained a position of some power globally, something it lacked at the beginning of this story, so was able to resort to force and violence to achieve its goals.

The discussion of travelers "before the Grand Tour" displays a sly wit as it describes the emerging publications in England to prepare travelers for their journey (much as we have tons of travel guides and tour books today). The traveler was instructed to keep copious notes (as we now keep a travel journal), and he was faced with the problem of making sense of his notes so as to share his
experiences with family, friends, and others upon his return. It is an image that might be recreated by holding a mirror to the modern "travel snob."

A book well worth reading.