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British Empire

About: British Empire is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 5763 publications have been published within this topic receiving 71967 citations.


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Book
01 Jan 2003
TL;DR: Fernández as discussed by the authors argues that the British Empire should be regarded not merely as vanished Victoriana but as the very cradle of modernity, and that far from being a subject for nostalgia, the story of the Empire is pregnant with lessons for the United States as it stands on the brink of a new kind of imperial power based once again on economic and military supremacy.
Abstract: A grand narrative history of the world's first experiment in globalization, with lessons for an ever-expanding American Empire--from England's most talented young historian. The British Empire was the largest in all history, its reach the nearest thing to world domination ever achieved. By the eve of the Second World War, over a fifth of the world's land surface and nearly a quarter of the world's population were under some form of British rule. Yet for today's generation, the British Empire has come to stand for nothing more than a lost Victorian past--one so remote that it has ceased even to be a target for satire. The time is ripe for a reappraisal. In this major new work of synthesis and revision, Niall Ferguson argues that the British Empire should be regarded not merely as vanished Victoriana but as the very cradle of modernity. Nearly all the key features of the twenty-first-centu ry world can be traced back to the extraordinary expansion of Britain's economy, population, and culture from the seventeenth century until the mid-twentieth--economic globalization, the communications revolution, the racial make-up of North America, the notion of humanitarianism, the nature of democracy. Displaying the originality and rigor that have made him the brightest light among British historians, Ferguson shows that far from being a subject for nostalgia, the story of the Empire is pregnant with lessons for the world today--in particular for the United States as it stands on the brink of a new kind of imperial power based once again on economic and military supremacy.

551 citations

Book
01 Jan 2000
TL;DR: 'Nature's Government' provides a portrait of how the ambitions of the Enlightenment shaped the great age of British power, and how empire changed the British experience and the modern world.
Abstract: 'Nature's Government' is a daring attempt to juxtapose the histories of Britain, western science, and imperialism. It shows how colonial expansion, from the age of Alexander the Great to the twentieth century, led to complex kinds of knowledge. Science, and botany in particular, was fed by information culled from the exploration of the globe. At the same time science was useful to imperialism: it guided the exploitation of exotic environments and made conquest seem necessary, legitimate, and beneficial. Drayton traces the history of this idea of 'improvement' from its Christian agrarian origins in the sixteenth century to its inclusion in theories of enlightened despotism. It was as providers of legitimacy, as much as of universal knowledge, aesthetic perfection, and agricultural plenty, he argues, that botanic gardens became instruments of government, first in Continental Europe, and by the late eighteenth century, in Britain and the British Empire. At the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, the rise of which throughout the nineteenth century is a central theme of this book, a pioneering scientific institution was added to a spectacular ornamental garden. At Kew, 'improving' the world became a potent argument for both the patronage of science at home and Britain's prerogatives abroad. 'Nature's Government' provides a portrait of how the ambitions of the Enlightenment shaped the great age of British power, and how empire changed the British experience and the modern world. Richard Drayton was born in the Caribbean and educated at Harvard, Oxford, and Yale. A former Fellow of St. Catharine's College, Cambridge, and Lincoln College, Oxford, he has also been Associate Professor of History at the University of Virginia.

475 citations

Book
13 Sep 1996
TL;DR: In this article, state and empire in British history are discussed, and the political economy of empire and ideology in the Walpolean era are discussed. But the focus is on the British state and its relationship with the British empire.
Abstract: 1. Introduction: state and empire in British history 2. The empire of Great Britain: England, Scotland and Ireland, c. 1542-1612 3. Protestantism and empire: Hakluyt, Purchas and property 4. The empire of the seas, 1576-1689 5. Liberty and empire 6. The political economy of empire 7. Empire and ideology in the Walpolean era.

435 citations

Book
01 Jan 1998

432 citations

Book
01 Nov 1988
TL;DR: The game legislation of the African colonies and India a colonoal game law - Northern Rhodesia, 1925 the membership of the Society for the Preservation of the Fauna of the Empire game and the independent African state - the Arusha manifesto, 1961 as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Hunting - themes and variations the 19th-century hunting world hunting and African societies hunting and settlement in southern Africa game and imperial rule in Central Africa exploration, conquest and game in East Africa the imperial hunt in India from preservation to conservation - legislation and the international dimension reserves and the tsetse controversy national parks in Africa and Asia shikar and safari - hunting and conservation in the British empire. Appendices: the game legislation of the African colonies and India a colonoal game law - Northern Rhodesia, 1925 the membership of the Society for the Preservation of the Fauna of the Empire game and the independent African state - the Arusha manifesto, 1961.

428 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
202340
202282
2021122
2020127
2019162
2018214