The Rise and Fall of the British Empire

Name: The Rise and Fall of the British Empire
Rating: 4.4 (10 reviews)

by Lawrence James

First published 1994

Amazon

3.4(10)

Lawrence James presents a global history of British expansion from the maritime ventures of the late sixteenth century to the empire’s twentieth-century dissolution. Chartered companies, privateers and settlers carried English power into the Atlantic, North America, the Caribbean and Asia, while war with European rivals and the profits of trade and slavery turned scattered possessions into a strategic system. The loss of the American colonies did not end expansion: naval supremacy, Company rule in India, migration and commerce created a new empire across Asia, Africa and the Pacific.

The book follows the high imperial age through Victorian politics, missionary and humanitarian claims, military conquest and the racial assumptions used to justify rule. It then examines how the two world wars exhausted British resources, strengthened colonial nationalism and made imperial retreat unavoidable. Independence in India, Africa and elsewhere is treated alongside the emergence of the Commonwealth and Britain’s reduced global position, with James assessing both the institutions empire transmitted and the violence, inequality and contested memories it left behind.

Historical Periods

Georgian Empire and Atlantic World1714–1837 CE Late Victorian Empire1870–1901 CE World War I1914–1918 CE World War II1939–1945 CE Cold War and Post-war Era1945–present Age of Explorationc. 1400–1600 CE

Genres

Court & Political Fiction

Historical people

Elizabeth I1533–1603 Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston1784–1865 Victoria1819–1901 Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington1769–1852 Horatio Nelson1758–1805 Francis Drake1540–1596 Winston Churchill1874–1965 George III1738–1820 William Pitt the Younger1759–1806 Walter Raleigh1552–1618 Joseph Chamberlain1836–1914 Oliver Cromwell1599–1658 Benjamin Disraeli1804–1881 Mahatma Gandhi1869–1948 Robert Clive1725–1774

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