Capitalism and peace
Britain and France waged war repeatedly in the century following 1688, a mutual antagonism sometimes described as a Second Hundred Years’ War. Yet these geopolitical rivals also sought periodically to cooperate. Officials worked to deflect rivalry from war into commerce; to reestablish freedom of trade; to avert future imperial conflict and imagine more collaborative forms of empire. Such projects were integral to an emerging capitalist order, which, if it produced conflict, also enjoined peace.