    10

    Bombay t

    o Bogota were financed by British banks and insured by British

    insurance companies.  Raw materials from the most distant corners of the

    globe flowed to Britain, were processed in English factories, and were sent

    back to the bustling bazaars of Borneo and Beirut as finished goods.  No

    wonder one economist, in 1865, called Britain "the trading center of the

    universe."

    In the beginning, the British knew how much their prosperity

    depended on the fact that they were ahead of any other country in the

    commercial utilization of technology.  As early as 1781, they banned the

    export of high-tech fabric-making machines and "any... tool, press, paper,

    utensil or implement or any part thereof, which now is or hereafter may be

    used in the woolen, cotton, linen or silk manufacture of the kingdom."10

    But as they grew fat with prosperity, British industrialists overlooked

    three simple  facts:

    A.  Every technological breakthrough eventually grows old.

    b.  New inventions arrive to replace it.  And

    c.  the country that dominates these new technologies often rules the

    world.11

     The technologies that made steam look old-fashioned were developed,

    ironically, in Britain.  But British industrialists, blinded by self-satisfaction,

    seldom tried to turn them into tempting new products.  The result would be

    disastrous.

    One of the most important of these cutting-edge developments sprang

    from a dilemma England encountered in ruling its far-flung empire.  Malaria

    was swatting down British troops stationed in India like flies.  So serious was

    the epidemic that the average British soldier on Indian soil had only half the

    life expectancy of his compatriots stationed back in the home country.

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