Cotton, Coal and Colonialism: Rethinking the Fossil Economy in the Geopolitical Context of British Imperialism

In a warming world in which rapid divestment from fossil fuelsfossil fuels is ever more pressing, the question of differentiated historical responsibilities for climate changeclimate change is looming large. While an assessment of the historical connections between colonialism and the fossil economy is much needed, existing theories of the energy transition have largely omitted the historical role of colonial processes in the emergence of fossil-fuelled production. This chapter aims to contribute to filling this gap by arguing that the fossil economy bears an inherently colonial dimension from which it has become abstracted in economic history. Conducting a globally oriented historical analysis of the energy transition in the nineteenth-century British cotton industry, it offers a geopolitical analysis of the fossil economy. The argument proceeds in three steps. It starts by critically discussing the extant explanations for the fossil economy and their (largely missing) account of colonial relations. Second, it analyses the underlying Eurocentric and internalist assumptions of these accounts before exploring what theoretical and conceptual amendments are necessary in order to incorporate the colonial context in our historical analysis. Finally, it offers a historical rereading of the rise of coal and its connection to colonialism, demonstrating how an incorporation of the geopolitical context of empire fundamentally alters our conception of the fossil economy.