Reviewed by:

• The English East India Company's Silk Enterprise in Bengal, 1750–1850: Economy, Empire and Business by Karolina Hutková
• Aparajita Mukhopadhyay (bio)

The English East India Company's Silk Enterprise in Bengal, 1750–1850: Economy, Empire and Business By Karolina Hutková. London: Boydell Press, 2019. Pp. 275.

Karolina Hutková's book is a welcome addition to our understanding of technology transfer in colonial context and its wider consequences on the colony and the metropole. The book focuses on English East India Company's (hereafter EEIC) "silk enterprise" in Bengal from 1750 to 1850.

The book sits at the intersection of global history, history of technology transfer, and business history in the eighteenth century and beyond. The narrative reflects overlapping strands of these distinct historiographies. The introduction situates EEIC's silk enterprise in the wider debates about the role and impact of EEIC's policies on Bengal's economy—and the history of EEIC and British political economy. The first chapter is an overview of the early modern silk industry across the globe. It also contextualizes EEIC's silk enterprise in Bengal. Next, the book shows how Britain's inability to produce raw silk necessitated the search for potential sources of supply (ch. 2). This need, Hutková argues, was underpinned by principles of mercantilism. Consequently, Britain preferred a region within their expanding empire. Bengal [End Page 593] became a "natural" choice, especially after the failed experiments with silk production in the Atlantic.

The book then discusses how EEIC embarked on its silk enterprise in Bengal (ch. 3, 4) and why the peculiarities of silk production in Bengal made raw silk production a profitable venture (ch. 5).

The last two chapters focus on metropolitan Britain. The author argues that the aforementioned advantages were lost in the nineteenth century as laissez-faire became the preferred economic principle and EEIC lost its monopoly rights to trade in Asia (ch. 6). She then shows how disinclination in investing in raw silk production forced a formerly profitable sector to eventually disappear, with deleterious consequences for Bengal's economy (ch. 7).

The book makes an important contribution to the ongoing and contentious debates among historians and non-academics about the impact of imperial policies on economic fortunes of colonies. It also throws light on an instance of successful technology transfer in a colonial setting. Nevertheless, it is important to ask what is new about underlining how imperial policies did not have salutary impact on the economies of colonies. This is a lesser-known story, but there is no denying the idea of "deindustrialization" as a consequence of imperial policies is time-worn. At a related level, there is an important inconsistency in the central hypothesis of the book. Hutková claims the "research challenges the perception that deindustrialization was the outcome of exploitative British institutions" (p. 4); yet in the same page she writes how the nineteenth-century decline in raw silk production was an unintended result of the shift to laissez-faire policies in Britain. Unless the operative word here is "unintended"—and the author proffers evidence that is absent from the book—it is difficult to balance two such radically opposite views.

Technology transfer is an equally important theme of the book. Yet, there is little use (except Ben Marsh's work on the United States) of the wider historiography of the subject—especially the recent literature about technology transfer in colonial South Asia, which focuses on limits (or lack thereof) of the process, including highlighting interactions between imported technologies and local societies. The absence of historiography in this book is particularly surprising, as some of the themes repeatedly underlined in the chapters (such as learning by doing, reliance on local knowledge, and resistance by silk farmers) show how even successful technology transfer in a colony was underpinned by more than financial investment and the desire for profit in the metropole.

Also, the discussion is primarily about Britain and India, with a smattering of information about silk in the early modern world—a rather diminutive outcome for a book...

审核人：

• 英国东印度公司在孟加拉的丝绸企业，1750 年至 1850 年：经济、帝国和商业作者 Karolina Hutková
• Aparajita Mukhopadhyay (bio)

英国东印度公司在孟加拉的丝绸企业，1750 年至 1850 年：经济、帝国和商业作者：Karolina Hutková。伦敦：博伊德尔出版社，2019 年。Pp。275.

Karolina Hutková 的书是我们对殖民背景下的技术转让及其对殖民地和大都市的更广泛影响的理解的一个受欢迎的补充。本书重点介绍了 1750 年至 1850 年英国东印度公司（以下简称 EEIC）在孟加拉的“丝绸企业”。

这本书位于全球历史、技术转让历史和 18 世纪及以后的商业历史的交汇处。叙述反映了这些不同历史编纂的重叠部分。介绍将 EEIC 的丝绸企业置于关于 EEIC 政策对孟加拉经济的作用和影响的更广泛辩论中，以及 EEIC 和英国政治经济的历史。第一章是对全球早期现代丝绸工业的概述。它还介绍了 EEIC 在孟加拉的丝绸企业。接下来，这本书展示了英国无法生产生丝如何需要寻找潜在的供应来源（第 2 章）。Hutková 认为，这种需要受到重商主义原则的支持。因此，英国更喜欢其扩张帝国内的一个地区。孟加拉[End Page 593]成为一个“自然”的选择，尤其是在大西洋丝绸生产实验失败之后。

然后，该书讨论了 EEIC 如何在孟加拉开展其丝绸企业（第 3、4 章）以及为什么孟加拉丝绸生产的特殊性使生丝生产成为一项有利可图的企业（第 5 章）。

最后两章侧重于英国大都市。作者认为，上述优势在 19 世纪失去了，因为自由放任成为首选的经济原则，EEIC 失去了其在亚洲贸易的垄断权（第 6 章）。然后她展示了投资生丝生产的意愿如何迫使一个以前有利可图的部门最终消失，给孟加拉的经济带来了有害的后果（第 7 章）。

The book makes an important contribution to the ongoing and contentious debates among historians and non-academics about the impact of imperial policies on economic fortunes of colonies. It also throws light on an instance of successful technology transfer in a colonial setting. Nevertheless, it is important to ask what is new about underlining how imperial policies did not have salutary impact on the economies of colonies. This is a lesser-known story, but there is no denying the idea of "deindustrialization" as a consequence of imperial policies is time-worn. At a related level, there is an important inconsistency in the central hypothesis of the book. Hutková claims the "research challenges the perception that deindustrialization was the outcome of exploitative British institutions" (p. 4); yet in the same page she writes how the nineteenth-century decline in raw silk production was an unintended result of the shift to laissez-faire policies in Britain. Unless the operative word here is "unintended"—and the author proffers evidence that is absent from the book—it is difficult to balance two such radically opposite views.

技术转移是本书同样重要的主题。然而，该主题的更广泛的历史编纂几乎没有使用（除了本·马什（Ben Marsh）关于美国的著作）——尤其是最近关于南亚殖民地技术转让的文献，它侧重于这一过程的限制（或缺乏），包括强调进口技术与当地社会之间的互动。本书中没有史学尤其令人惊讶，因为章节中反复强调的一些主题（例如边干边学、依赖当地知识以及丝农的抵抗）表明，即使是成功的技术转让也是如何在殖民地获得支持的不仅仅是金融投资和大都市对利润的渴望。

此外，讨论主要是关于英国和印度的，关于早期现代世界丝绸的信息很少——对于一本书来说，这是一个相当小的成果……