AHQ: Could Britain have conquered all of India without the Industrial Revolution?

Could Britain conquer all of India without the Industrial Revolution happening?

  • Yes. British Raj goes as OTL.

    Votes: 28 45.2%
  • No. Britain only keeps outposts and trading ports.

    Votes: 30 48.4%
  • No. Britain is kicked off India by the Marathas or some Indian power.

    Votes: 4 6.5%

  • Total voters
    62
By the time the British were getting a foothold,Mughals had been loosing relevance in India and the process was started by Aurangzeb. It's not possible for Mughals to do anything more by then but concede. Marathas on the other hand could conquer but holding them was a problem for them too. Before the British and the Mughals,Kushans were the last biggest unified Empire in India. India,due to its location,is a history dotted with empires of Immigrants since the Bronze age itself.
So are we just going to ignore the Gupta Empire and Tughlaq Delhi Sultanate (both much larger and closer to the modern day than the Kushan Empire) in favour of pigeonholing Indo-Europeans dominating South Asia into yet another thread?
 
So are we just going to ignore the Gupta Empire and Tughlaq Delhi Sultanate (both much larger and closer to the modern day than the Kushan Empire) in favour of pigeonholing Indo-Europeans dominating South Asia into yet another thread?
Plus, the Guptas and Delhi sultans (well, less sure about the Delhi sultans but Persian was still the prestige language) were both Indo-European speakers, something Albert.Nik apparently seems reluctant to admit.
 

Albert.Nik

Banned
So are we just going to ignore the Gupta Empire and Tughlaq Delhi Sultanate (both much larger and closer to the modern day than the Kushan Empire) in favour of pigeonholing Indo-Europeans dominating South Asia into yet another thread?
No,Gupta Empire wasn't as large as the Kushan Empire for the most part. Even if they were,the expanse of the power didn't spread to that diverse territories. Kushans ruled from Turfan(the Easternmost Tocharian town) to Pataliputra deep inside the Gangetic plains.
Plus, the Guptas and Delhi sultans (well, less sure about the Delhi sultans but Persian was still the prestige language) were both Indo-European speakers, something Albert.Nik apparently seems reluctant to admit.
Guptas,yes. They were Indo-European speakers and of the ruling class which had ancestries of Greek,Scythian,Iranic and Tocharian by then. Later ages,even some Huns also had came. Delhi Sultans were clearly Turkic initially but later Pashtuns dominated it. Pashtuns are a amalgamation of Kushans,Huns,Scythians,Bactrians,Sogdians,Persians,etc as per many sources. So they were IE you can say.
But Mughals were of Turko-Mongol and Persian origin but were quickly Indianized. Till they lost Western frontier regions in Afghanistan,Persian influence was quite big.
 
Britain's main export markets during the first wave of the industrial revolution was America and Europe, not Asia.



Asia's importance to Great Britain as a market grew significantly with the end of the Napoleonic wars, and that was after Britain's industrial dominance became absolute.





How so?

Failed in India, not as a country, if that wasn't clear. There were too many Indians for every Britain.
 
Troll post?
The "California School" isn't widely accepted to my knowledge. The orthodox view is that the GD began in the 1500s if not the 1400s, and that it was a trend which preceded the Industrial Revolution.

edit: admittedly it's not my area of expertise so I'm more than willing to be corrected.
 
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The "California School" isn't widely accepted to my knowledge. The orthodox view is that the GD began in the 1500s if not the 1400s, and that it was a trend which preceded the Industrial Revolution.

Like much of history, it's still a matter of debate. Within the field of global/transnational history, however, they are still considered the baseline. IIRC, the most current work of criticism argues that the GD began earlier, in the 18th and 17th centuries, but still maintains that the significant Great Divergence only occurred with the industrial revolution.
 
The "California School" isn't widely accepted to my knowledge. The orthodox view is that the GD began in the 1500s if not the 1400s, and that it was a trend which preceded the Industrial Revolution.

edit: admittedly it's not my area of expertise so I'm more than willing to be corrected.
Is After Tamerlane an example of the California School?

(It's basic argument is that Europe had no institutional advantages and lucked into empires)
 
Is After Tamerlane an example of the California School?

(It's basic argument is that Europe had no institutional advantages and lucked into empires)

If you read the following review by Peer Vries (who a few years ago called the Californian school a "fruitful mistake"): https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/pdfplus/10.3366/brs.2008.0009
you'll see that Darwin shares several opinions with Pomeranz and the Californians. Besides that, the book looks like a classic work of contemporary global history.
 
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