Reappraisals In British Imperial History

This collection offers new perspectives on the legacy of British colonisation by concentrating on Atlantic Canada (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island), a region that was pivotal to safeguarding Britain's imperial ambitions, between 1750 and 1930. New and established researchers from Canada, Scotland and the United States engage with the core themes of migration, dispossession, religion, identity, and commemoration in a way that diverges markedly from existing scholarship. The research shines much-needed light on groups traditionally excluded from Britain's broader imperial narrative, highlighting the indigenous experience and the presence and agency of slaves, free people of colour and religious minorities.

Colonising New Zealand offers a radically new vision of the basis and process of Britain’s colonisation of New Zealand. It commences by confronting the problems arising from subjective and ever-evolving moral judgements about colonisation and examines the possibility of understanding colonisation beyond the confines of any preoccupations with moral perspectives. It then investigates the motives behind Britain’s imperial expansion, both in a global context and specifically in relation to New Zealand. The nature and reasons for this expansion are deciphered using the model of an organic imperial ecosystem, which involves examining the first cause of all colonisation and which provides a means of understanding why the disparate parts of the colonial system functioned in the ways that they did. Britain’s imperial system did not bring itself into being, and so the notion of the Empire having emerged from a supra-system is assessed, which in turn leads to an exploration of the idea of equilibrium-achievement as the Prime Mover behind all colonisation—something that is borne out in New Zealand’s experience from the late eighteenth century. This work changes profoundly the way New Zealand’s colonisation is interpreted, and provides a framework for reassessing all forms of imperialism.

This text brings together contributions from scholars in South African and imperial history to examine the international dimensions of the war, including a historiographical review of a century of writing on the origins of the war.

Provides a comprehensive chronological narrative of the history of the British Empire between 1815 and 1914, together with a more theoretical and reflective concluding chapter, thus giving an overview of British policy and action which takes account of the many factors underlying British expansion.

A milestone in the understanding of British history and imperialism, this ground-breaking book radically reinterprets the course of modern economic development and the causes of overseas expansion during the past three centuries. Employing their concept of 'gentlemanly capitalism', the authors draw imperial and domestic British history together to show how the shape of the nation and its economy depended on international and imperial ties, and how these ties were undone to produce the post-colonial world of today. Containing a significantly expanded and updated Foreword and Afterword, this third edition assesses the development of the debate since the book’s original publication, discusses the imperial era in the context of the controversy over globalization, and shows how the study of the age of empires remains relevant to understanding the post-colonial world. Covering the full extent of the British empire from China to South America and taking a broad chronological view from the seventeenth century to post-imperial Britain today, British Imperialism: 1688–2015 is the perfect read for all students of imperial and global history.