If we include Asia … ?

By the middle of the 18th century the economics of trade had become truly global. Englishmen drank French wine and brandy when they could get it; Frenchmen used spices imported from the Dutch East Indies; Hollanders cooked with Spanish olive oil; and Spaniards ate salted cod from New England. Sugar, chocolate, tobacco, and ginseng moved from the New World to the Old; woodland furs, fragrant sandalwood, Asian silk, and India cloth were sold in markets from Italy to Philadelphia; Indigo dye moved from the East coast of Africa to the south of England; and human beings were torn from their homes and forced to labor in the wilderness of America.

Englishmen in Britain and America — and other persons of many nationalities — drank tea from China, but the extent of the British imperium represented more than could be found in the bottom of a teacup. Rare spices and unusual fragrances from the East could be found in most up-scale markets in the West, and many wealthy families had collections of Chinese porcelain, lacquered ware, and various other Oriental items like rugs, draperies, and wallpaper arranged in special rooms “a' la Chinoise.” There was also a Hindustani fashion craze that took root among the socially elite. Gentlemen lounged about their homes in banyans (a quilted full-length robe) and exotic caps or head wrappings, and women donned turbans, saris, and other India styles for social affairs.

Capitalism had not yet quite taken hold. The East India Company was central to this transformation, just as tea was central to the East India Company. The company had begun as a corporation specializing in the importation of silk and spices from India. The trade in tea began with small and irregular parcels, transshipped from China and sent almost as an afterthought, in the seventeenth century. But in the eighteenth century, the East India Company began to find a ready market for tea. Establishing a trading factory in Canton (now Guangzhou) in the early eighteenth century gave the Company access to a steady supply of tea, and imports increased exponentially through the rest of the century.

The British trading empire was founded on the principle of mercantilism, which history suggests was a necessary signpost on the road to industrialism, capitalism, and the free market. Formulated in the 17th century, mercantilism theorized that colonies existed chiefly to benefit the parent state. This benefit was realized in two ways. Real wealth was to be measured by the store of precious metals a nation held, and the state that accumulated the greatest store of silver and gold was thought to be the richest. Secondly, any nation that could maintain a favorable trade balance with its neighbors could always settle the difference by demanding payments in gold. Freedom from foreign trade deficits, therefore, was considered a measure of commercial strength and economic health.