There’s never been anything like this in the history of the planet, just generating wealth in really nasty ways. Basically, Europeans ship Africans to the New World to dig up New World resources to bring them back to Europe, to fuel the European economic growth. It’s not a nice process, but it changes the meaning of Britain’s geography. Britain goes from being at the margin of the European stage to being, potentially, at the centre of an Atlantic and even global stage, once you’ve got these ships. That’s the first thing.

Ian Morris on 80000 hours show