The Rise And Fall Of The British Empire

JAMES/RISE AND FALL OF BRITISH EMPI

Covers the history of the British Empire from 1600 to the present day, and its transition from ruler of half the world to its current status of isolated, economically fragile island.

A WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD NOTABLE BOOK After the American Revolution, the British Empire appeared to be doomed. Yet it grew to become the greatest, most diverse empire the world had seen. Then, within a generation, the mighty structure collapsed, a rapid demise that left an array of dependencies and a contested legacy: at best a sporting spirit, a legal code and a near-universal language; at worst, failed states and internecine strife. The Decline and Fall of the British Empire covers a vast canvas, which Brendon fills with vivid particulars, from brief lives to telling anecdotes to comic episodes to symbolic moments.

Great Britain's geopolitical role in the global scheme of things has undergone many radical changes over the last four centuries. Once a maritime superpower and ruler of half the world, Britain's current position as an isolated, economically fragile island squabbling with her European neighbours often seems difficult to accept, if not comprehend. Spanning four centuries and six continents, Lawrence James' THE RISE AND FALL OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE examines the imperial experience and its legacy with tremendous verve and perception. In this new edition his original work has been abridged and illustrated with meticulously researched photographs, paintings and ephemera to create a comprehensive and visually stunning and accessible summary of the era.

The British Empire, wrote Adam Smith, 'has hitherto been not an empire, but the project of an empire' and John Darwin offers a magisterial global history of the rise and fall of that great imperial project. The British Empire, he argues, was much more than a group of colonies ruled over by a scattering of British expatriates until eventual independence. It was, above all, a global phenomenon. Its power derived rather less from the assertion of imperial authority than from the fusing together of three different kinds of empire: the settler empire of the 'white dominions'; the commercial empire of the City of London; and 'Greater India' which contributed markets, manpower and military muscle. This unprecedented history charts how this intricate imperial web was first strengthened, then weakened and finally severed on the rollercoaster of global economic, political and geostrategic upheaval on which it rode from beginning to end.

This highly original, extremely enjoyable book tells the story of Britain’s extraordinary scramble to world power in the 18th century and how, through hubris and incompetence, it lost almost everything it had gained. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, Britain was an important European power, but few would have predicted her global pre-eminence by 1760. As Brendan Simms shows with great flair and originality, Britain had a crucial card to play. It was the joining of the British crown to Hanover that gave Britain two empires: one scattered around the world and another – the more important of the two - firmly locked into Germany. Having created a new empire Britain then spectacularly lost it, this time because of its chaotic failure to maintain its European alliances. This is an epic and often unexpected story, and Simms tells it brilliantly.

The Rise & Fall of the British Empire, a guide to the history of the British Empire, is one of four new in-depth titles with all the fantastic features you expect from our best-selling KS3 History series. Take your students' learning even further with the new KS3 History Depth Study titles. Designed to support the best-selling KS3 History resources, these textbooks give a more detailed insight into British and world history, allowing teachers to delve deeper into topics and themes of particular interest.

While imperial blockbusters fly off the shelves, there is no comprehensive history dedicated to resistance in the 19th and 20th century British Empire. The Trouble with Empire is the first volume to fill this gap, offering a brief but thorough introduction to the nature and consequences of resistance to British imperialism. Historian Antoinette Burton's study spans the 19th and 20th centuries, when discontented subjects of empire made their unhappiness felt from Ireland to Canada to India to Africa to Australasia, in direct response to incursions of military might and imperial capitalism. The Trouble with Empire offers the first thoroughgoing account of what British imperialism looked like from below and of how tenuous its hold on alien populations was throughout its long, unstable life. By taking the long view, moving across a variety of geopolitical sites and spanning the whole of the period 1840-1955, Burton examines the commonalities between different forms of resistance and unveils the structural weaknesses of the British Empire.0.