The Development Of The British Empire

Robinson wrote this book to introduce American students to an important part of history that wasn't taught extensively at schools and colleges in the United States. The author discusses the growth of Great Britain, with particular emphasis on recent years, as progress had been quite rapid in the 100 years prior to his book's publication. Newfoundland appears as a topic in both chapters four and twenty-three, as both a British colony and neighbor to the Dominion of Canada. In chapter four, Robinson explains how the importance of the fishery to Britain lead to the colonization of the island and the resulting problems with the French. Chapter twenty-three includes a further description of Newfoundland's fishery, her government, and the possibility of joining Confederation.

Up to World War II and beyond, the British ruled over a vast empire. Modern western attitudes towards the imperial past tend either towards nostalgia for British power or revulsion at what seem to be the abuses of that power. The Cambridge Illustrated History of the British Empire adopts neither of these approaches. It aims to create historical understanding about the British empire on the assumption that such understanding is important for any informed appreciation of the modern world. Through striking illustration and a text written by leading experts, this book examines the experience of colonialism in North America, India, Africa, Australia, and the Caribbean, as well as the impact of the empire on Britain itself. Emphasis is placed on social and cultural history, including slavery, trade, religion, art, and the movement of ideas. How did the British rule their empire? Who benefited economically from the empire? And who lost?

From the eighteenth century until the 1950s the British Empire was the biggest political entity in the world. The territories forming this empire ranged from tiny islands to vast segments of the world's major continental land masses. The British Empire left its mark on the world in a multitude of ways, many of them permanent. In this Very Short Introduction, Ashley Jackson introduces and defines the British Empire, reviewing its historiography by answering a series of key questions: What was the British Empire, and what were its main constituent parts? What were the phases of imperial expansion and contraction and the general causes of expansion and contraction? How was the Empire ruled? What were its economic effects? What were the cultural implications of empire, in Britain and its colonies? What was life like for people living under imperial rule? What are the legacies of the British Empire and how should we view its place in world history? ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Excerpt from The Development of the British Empire Few of the great themes of history have a more compelling interest than that which is the subject of this book, for it includes almost every kind of appeal to the student or reader. There is romance in the beginning, in the story of discovery and exploration, of those who sailed with Drake or Raleigh or followed the track of Portuguese caravels to India. Even the homely narrative of obscure settlements carries on that great adventure which lends an epic quality to what might otherwise at first seem insignificant in itself, however important its subsequent effects upon national institutions. The culmination of this heroic theme is reached with Wolfe and Clive. Then come other considerations not less interesting to the English-speaking peoples, problems of colonial government, experiments reaching all the way from repression in America through revolution on the Atlantic seaboard and rebellion in Canada to liberty and democracy in self-governing Dominions and finally to mandated territories held under contract with the League of Nations. The economics of world-empire, with its diverse and mutually conflicting claims and systems, is a subject hardly less vast than that of its political structure, and one almost as important to America as to Great Britain itself. The peculiar problems of Egypt and India and of the growth of nationalism in other parts of the empire is a matter of too recent public discussion to call for further comment here. A history of the Development of the British Empire written by an American historian who can survey the process with detachment and whose well-turned narrative rests upon adequate research needs no word of editorial commendation or apology. Professor Robinson's volume will be its own justification. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

The Ideological Origins of the British Empire presents a comprehensive history of British conceptions of empire for more than half a century. David Armitage traces the emergence of British imperial identity from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-eighteenth centuries, using a full range of manuscript and printed sources. By linking the histories of England, Scotland and Ireland with the history of the British Empire, he demonstrates the importance of ideology as an essential linking between the processes of state-formation and empire-building. This book sheds light on major British political thinkers, from Sir Thomas Smith to David Hume, by providing fascinating accounts of the 'British problem' in the early modern period, of the relationship between Protestantism and empire, of theories of property, liberty and political economy in imperial perspective, and of the imperial contribution to the emergence of British 'identities' in the Atlantic world.

Examines the history of British worldwide expansion from the Glorious Revolution of 1689 to the end of the Napoleonic Wars, a crucial phase in the creation of the modern British Empire.