Pathogenesis: A History of the World in Eight Plagues

by Jonathan Kennedy

The legacy of previous infectious disease outbreaks catalyzed the Industrial Revolution in a number of other ways too. Most of the raw cotton used to produce textiles in the factories of northern England was cultivated in the American South by malaria-resistant enslaved Africans. And sugar, which provided the growing urban working classes in the UK with a cheap source of calories in the form of jams, cakes and biscuits, was produced by enslaved Africans in the Caribbean.[3] Furthermore, a large proportion of the vast profits from colonialism and slavery were reinvested in Britain. In this way, the suffering of enslaved Africans and colonized peoples paid for the construction of vital infrastructure such as the roads, canals, docks and railways that made the Industrial Revolution possible.[4]