    8

    inno

    produced by a scrubby, low-hung bush into an expensive but

    extraordinarily comfortable cloth.  The result was called cotton.  But the

    Anglo-Saxons invented machines that could spit out this fabric at bargain-

    basement costs, and the result sold like crazy.4  The English also perfected

    the art of mass-producing pig iron--another substance in worldwide

    demand.  And the British built an international marketing system on a scale

    that boggled the mind, with ships controlling the sea lanes of every major

    ocean, and colonial footholds that helped them develop markets for their

    merchandise everywhere from India to South America.

    While this explosion in British trade was getting underway, a

    gentleman on the other side of the English channel championed the

    short-sighted proposition that a nation's might depends on military

    strength.  He made occasional disparaging remarks about the "nation of

    shopkeepers" back in the British isles.  At first, his military power did appear

    to demonstrate that weapons are more important than trade.  The skeptic's

    name was Napoleon.  And he humbled every country he

    encountered--Spain, Holland, Prussia, Austria and even Egypt.  But

    somehow Napoleon couldn't bring the pesky British to their knees.  Why?

    The English kept piling up profits from the worldwide export of their hot

    new goods.  And Englishmen were able to plow those profits into two

    things: increased industrial innovation; and military resistance to Napoleon.

    Napoleon, with his military genius, sailed through one battlefield

    victory after another.  But in the countries he conquered, he botched the job

    of setting industry on the path of innovation.  The result: the economies

    from which he drew the funds for non-stop warfare stagnated.  Workers

    and bosses still mired in obsolete technologies could ill afford to subsidize

    the little general's exorbitant armies.

    Overtaxed populations eventually grew resentful.  So when the British

    "nation of shopkeepers" finally invaded French-held Spain, the Spanish

    population rose up in arms to support the limy liberators.  Not long after,

    Napoleon was crushed.  He had overlooked the fact that military might

      vations.  Asians had long since figured out how to turn the fluff

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