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1 - The Second Hundred Years War

France vs Britain (1688–1815)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2026

Stephen Broadberry
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
Mark Harrison
Affiliation:
University of Warwick
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Summary

The chapter distinguishes two types of economic warfare: ’capacity-focused economic warfare’ and ‘market-focused economic warfare’. The latter dominated the era of mercantilism. Still, the practices of economic war during the ‘Second Hundred Years War’ that opposed France and England were manifold and evolved throughout the period. The British pursued an aggressive strategy of market-focused economic warfare until the Pax Britannica made it largely superfluous. On the other hand, from 1713 on, the French tried to disentangle economic competition from military conflict, in times of both peace and war. Even if Napoleon was a mercantilist, the Continental System is best understood as a failed gamble on capacity-focused economic warfare rather than an exercise in mercantilism. This prepared the post-1815 advent of the liberal international order in which economic competition and war became separate entities.

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