The Indian Saltpeter Trade, the Military Revolution, and the Rise of Britain as a Global Superpower

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes1. This article presents research conducted in 1995–1997, funded in part by the History Department of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The original version of this article first was presented at the Conference on Indian Military History at Wolfson College, Cambridge University, in Britain, in the summer of 1997, under my former name, James W. Hoover. Due to the subsequent publication of considerably more research, that article has been substantially revised, although the essential thesis has remained unaltered.2. For the changing tonnage of Indiamen, see Kenneth McPherson, The Indian Ocean: A History of People and the Sea (New Delhi: Oxford UP, 1993), 201. During the period 1700–1710, some 461 European voyages to…