Historiography of the British Empire

The historiography of the British Empire refers to the studies, sources, critical methods and interpretations used by scholars to study the history of the British Empire. Scholars have long studied the Empire, looking at the causes for its formation, its relations to the French and other empires, and the kinds of people and their ideas who became imperialists or anti-imperialists. The history of the breakdown of the Empire has attracted scholars of the United States (which broke away in 1776), as well as India (independent in 1947) and the African colonies (independent in the 1960s). John Darwin (2013) identifies four imperial goals: colonizing, civilizing, converting, and commerce. In the First British Empire (before the 1780s) there was no single imperial vision, but rather a multiplicity of private operations led by different groups of English, then after 1707, British businessmen or religious groups. Although protected by the Royal Navy, they were not funded or planned by the government.

In the Second British Empire, which emerged after the loss of the Thirteen Colonies (1783) and the victory in the Napoleonic Wars (1815) there four distinct elements in the colonies. The most politically developed colonies were the self-governing colonies in the Caribbean and those that later formed Canada and Australia. India was in a category by itself, and its immense size and distance required control of the routes to it, and in turn permitted British naval dominance from the Persian Gulf to the South China Sea. The third group was a mixed bag of smaller territories, including isolated ports used as way stations to India, and emerging trade entrepots such as Hong Kong and Singapore, along with a few isolated ports in Africa. The fourth kind of empire was the "informal empire," that is financial dominance exercised through investments, as in Latin America, and including the complex situation in Egypt (it was owned theoretically by the Ottoman Empire, but ruled by Britain). Darwin argues the British Empire was distinguished by the adaptability of its builders: "The hallmark of British imperialism was its extraordinary versatility in method, outlook and object." The British tried to avoid military action in favour of reliance on networks of local elites and businessmen who voluntarily collaborated and in turn gained authority (and military protection) from British recognition.

In recent years scholars have paid special attention to its impact on the native peoples of Asia and Africa who became part of its domain, with respect to the impact on their economy, social structure, demography, politics and world view. The cultural turn in historiography has recently emphasized issues of language, religion, gender, and identity. Recent debates have considered the relationship between the "metropole" (Britain itself, especially London), and the colonial peripheries. The "British world" historians stress the material, emotional, and financial links among the colonizers across the imperial diaspora. The "new imperial historians," by contrast, are more concerned with the Empire's impact on the metropole, including everyday experiences and images.

British Empire in red, 1897

Idea of Empire

Armitage (2008) traces the emergence of a British imperial ideology from the time of Henry VIII to that of Robert Walpole in the 1720s and 1730s. Using a close reading of English, Scottish and Irish authors from Sir Thomas Smith (1513–77) to David Hume (1711–1776), Armitage argues that the imperial ideology was both a critical agent in the formation of a British state from three kingdoms and an essential bond between the state and the transatlantic colonies. Armitage thus links the concerns of the 'New British History' with that of the Atlantic history. Before 1700, Armitage finds that contested English and Scottish versions of state and empire delayed the emergence of a unitary imperial ideology. Furthermore, the notions of republicanism produced in the writers a tension between "empire and liberty" and "imperium and dominium". However political economists Nicholas Barbon and Charles Davenant in the late 17th century emphasized the significance of commerce, especially mercantilism or commerce that was closed to outsiders, to the success of the state. They argued that "trade depended on liberty, and that liberty could therefore be the foundation of empire." To overcome competing versions of 'empires of the seas' within Britain, Parliament undertook the regulation of the Irish economy, the Act of Union (1707) and the formation of a unitary and organic 'British' empire of the sea. Walpole's opponents in the 1730s in the "country party" and in the American colonies developed an alternative vision of empire that would be "Protestant, commercial, maritime and free." Walpole did not ensure the promised "liberty" to the colonies because he was intent on subordinating all colonial economic activity to the mercantilist advantages of the metropolis. Anti-imperial critiques emerged from Francis Hutcheson and David Hume, presaging the republicanism that swept the American colonies in the 1770s and led to the creation of a rival empire.

Mercantilism

Main article: Mercantilism

Mercantilism is an economic theory practice, commonly used in Britain, France and other major European nations from the 16th to the 18th century that promoted governmental regulation of a nation’s economy for the purpose of augmenting state power at the expense of rival national powers. It was the economic counterpart of political absolutism. It involves a national economic policy aimed at accumulating monetary reserves through a positive balance of trade, especially of finished goods. Mercantilism dominated Western European economic policy and discourse from the 16th to late-18th centuries. Mercantilism was a cause of frequent European wars and also motivated colonial expansion.

High tariffs, especially on manufactured goods, are an almost universal feature of mercantilist policy. Other policies have included:

• Building overseas colonies;
• Forbidding colonies to trade with other nations;
• Monopolizing markets with staple ports;
• Banning the export of gold and silver, even for payments;
• Forbidding trade to be carried in foreign ships;
• Export subsidies;
• Promoting manufacturing with research or direct subsidies;
• Limiting wages;
• Maximizing the use of domestic resources;
• Restricting domestic consumption with non-tariff barriers to trade.

The term "mercantile system" was used by its foremost critic Adam Smith,

Mercantilism in its simplest form was bullionism which focused on accumulating gold and silver through clever trades (leaver the trading partner with less of his gold and silver). Mercantilist writers emphasized the circulation of money and rejected hoarding. Their emphasis on monetary metals accords with current ideas regarding the money supply, such as the stimulative effect of a growing money supply. In England, mercantilism reached its peak during the Long Parliament government (1640–1660). Mercantilist policies were also embraced throughout much of the Tudor and Stuart periods, with Robert Walpole being another major proponent. In Britain, government control over the domestic economy was far less extensive than on the Continent, limited by common law and the steadily increasing power of Parliament. Government-controlled monopolies were common, especially before the English Civil War, but were often controversial.

The Anglo-Dutch Wars were fought between the English and the Dutch for control over the seas and trade routes.

With respect to its colonies, British mercantilism meant that the government and the merchants became partners with the goal of increasing political power and private wealth, to the exclusion of other empires. The government protected its merchants – and kept others out – by trade barriers, regulations, and subsidies to domestic industries in order to maximize exports from and minimize imports to the realm. The government had to fight smuggling – which became a favorite American technique in the 18th century to circumvent the restrictions on trading with the French, Spanish or Dutch. The goal of mercantilism was to run trade surpluses, so that gold and silver would pour into London. The government took its share through duties and taxes, with the remainder going to merchants in Britain. The government spent much of its revenue on a superb Royal Navy, which not only protected the British colonies but threatened the colonies of the other empires, and sometimes seized them. Thus the British Navy captured New Amsterdam (New York) in 1664. The colonies were captive markets for British industry, and the goal was to enrich the mother country (not the colonists).

Mercantilism helped create trade patterns such as the triangular trade in the North Atlantic, in which raw materials were imported to the metropolis and then processed and redistributed to other colonies.

British mercantilist writers were themselves divided on whether domestic controls were necessary. British mercantilism thus mainly took the form of efforts to control trade. A wide array of regulations was put in place to encourage exports and discourage imports. Tariffs were placed on imports and bounties given for exports, and the export of some raw materials was banned completely. The Navigation Acts expelled foreign merchants from England's domestic trade. The nation aggressively sought colonies and once under British control, regulations were imposed that allowed the colony to only produce raw materials and to only trade with Britain. This led to smuggling by major merchants and political friction with the businessmen of these colonies. Mercantilist policies (such as forbidding trade with other empires and controls over smuggling) were a major irritant leading to the American Revolution.

Mercantilism taught that trade was a zero-sum game with one country's gain equivalent to a loss sustained by the trading partner. Whatever the theoretical weaknesses exposed by economists after Adam Smith, it was under mercantilist policies before the 1840s that Britain became the world's dominant trader, and the global hegemon. Mercantilism in Britain ended when Parliament repealed the Navigation Acts and Corn Laws by 1846.

First British Empire and Second British Empire

The concept of a first and second British Empire was developed by historians in the late 19th century, and is a concept usually used by advanced scholars. Timothy H. Parsons argued in 2014, "In fact, there were several British empires that ended at different times and for different reasons." He focused on the Second.

Ashley Jackson argued in 2013 that historians have even extended to a third and fourth empire:

The first British Empire was largely destroyed by the loss of the American colonies, followed by a 'swing to the east' and the foundation of a second British Empire based on commercial and territorial expansion in South Asia. The third British Empire was the construction of a 'white' dominion power bloc in the international system based on Britain's relations with its settler offshoots Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa....The fourth British Empire, meanwhile, is used to denote Britain's rejuvenated imperial focus on Africa and South-East Asia following the Second World War and the independence in 1947-8 of Britain's South Asian dependencies, when the Empire became a vital crutch in Britain's economic recovery.

The first Empire was founded in the 17th century, and based on the migration of large numbers of settlers to the American, as well as the development of the sugar plantation colonies in the West Indies. It ended with the British loss of the American War for Independence. The second Empire had already started to emerge. It was originally designed as a chain of trading ports and naval bases. However, it expanded inland into the control of large numbers of natives when the East India Company proved highly successful in taking control of most of India. India became the keystone of the Second Empire, along with colonies later developed across Africa. A few new settler colonies were also built up in Australia and New Zealand, and to a lesser extent in South Africa. Marshall shows the consensus of scholars is clear, for since 1900 the concepts of the First British Empire have "held their ground in historians' usage without serious challenge." Marshall notes that the exact dating of the two empires varies, with 1783 a typical demarcation point. Thus the story of the American revolt provides a key: The Fall of the First British Empire: Origins of the Wars of American Independence (1982) by American professors Robert W. Tucker and David Hendrickson, stresses the victorious initiative of the Americans. By contrast Cambridge professor Brendan Simms explores Three Victories and a Defeat: The Rise and Fall of the First British Empire, 1714-1783 (2007) and explains Britain's defeat in terms of alienating the major powers on the Continent.

Theories of imperialism

Theories about imperialism typically focus on the British Empire, with side glances elsewhere. The term "Imperialism" was originally introduced into English in its present sense in the late 1870s by opponents of the allegedly aggressive and ostentatious imperial policies of British prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. It was shortly appropriated by supporters of "imperialism" such as Joseph Chamberlain. For some, imperialism designated a policy of idealism and philanthropy; others alleged that it was characterized by political self-interest, and a growing number associated it with capitalist greed. Liberal John A. Hobson and Marxist Lenin added a more theoretical macroeconomic connotation to the term. Many theoreticians on the left have followed either or both in emphasizing the structural or systemic character of "imperialism." Such writers have expanded the time period associated with the term so that it now designates neither a policy, nor a short space of decades in the late 19th century, but a world system extending over a period of centuries, often going back to Christopher Columbus and, in some accounts, to the Crusades. As the application of the term has expanded, its meaning has shifted along five distinct but often parallel axes: the moral, the economic, the systemic, the cultural, and the temporal. Those changes reflect - among other shifts in sensibility - a growing unease, even squeamishness, with the fact of power, specifically, Western power.

The relationship among capitalism, aristocracy, and imperialism has long been debated among historians and political theorists. Much of the debate was pioneered by such theorists as J. A. Hobson (1858–1940), Joseph Schumpeter (1883–1950), Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929), and Norman Angell (1872–1967). While these non-Marxist writers were at their most prolific before World War I, they remained active in the interwar years. Their combined work informed the study of imperialism's impact on Europe, as well as contributed to reflections on the rise of the military-political complex in the United States from the 1950s. Hobson argued that domestic social reforms could cure the international disease of imperialism by removing its economic foundation. Hobson theorized that state intervention through taxation could boost broader consumption, create wealth, and encourage a peaceful multilateral world order. Conversely, should the state not intervene, rentiers (people who earn income from property or securities) would generate socially negative wealth that fostered imperialism and protectionism.

Benevolence and human rights

The British had a duty to protect and promote the human rights of the natives, and to help pull them from the slough of traditionalism and cruelties (such as suttee in India and foot binding in China). The notion of "benevolence" was developed in the 1780-1840 era by idealists who proved a pain to efficiency-oriented colonial administrators and profit-oriented merchants. Partly it was a matter of fighting corruption in the Empire, as typified by Edmund Burke's long, but failed, attempt to impeach Warren Hastings for his cruelties in India. The most successful development came in the abolition of slavery led by William Wilberforce and the Evangelicals, and the expansion of Christian missionary work. Edward Gibbon Wakefield (1796–1852) spearheaded efforts to create model colonies (such as South Australia, Canada and New Zealand. In Wakefield’s vision, the object of benevolence was to introduce and promote values of industriousness and a productive economy, and not use colonies as a dumping ground for transported criminals.

Slavery

One of the most controversial aspects of the Empire is its role in first promoting and then ending slavery. In the 18th century British merchant ships were the largest element in the "Middle Passage" which transported millions of slaves to the Western Hemisphere. Most of those who survived the journey wound up in the Caribbean, where the Empire had highly profitable sugar colonies, and the living conditions were bad (the plantation owners lived in Britain). Parliament ended the international transportation of slaves in 1807, and used the Royal navy to enforce that ban. In 1833 it bought out the plantation owners and banned slavery. Historians before the 1940s argued that moralistic reformers such as William Wilberforce were primarily responsible.

Historical revisionism arrived with West Indian historian Eric Williams in Capitalism and Slavery (1944), rejected this moral explanation and argued that abolition was now more profitable, for a century of sugar cane raising had exhausted the soil of the islands, and the plantations had become unprofitable. It was more profitable to sell the slaves to the government than to keep up operations. The 1807 prohibition of the international trade, Williams argued, prevented French expansion on other islands. Meanwhile, British investors turned to Asia, where labor was so plentiful that slavery was unnecessary. Williams went on to argue that slavery played a major role in making Britain prosperous. The high profits from the slave trade, he said, helped finance the Industrial Revolution. Britain enjoyed prosperity because of the capital gained from the unpaid work of slaves.

More recently historians have challenged Williams. They have shown that slavery remained profitable in the 1830s because of innovations in agriculture so the profit motive was not central to abolition. Richardson (1998) finds Williams's claims regarding the Industrial Revolution are exaggerated, for profits from the slave trade amounted to less than 1% of domestic investment in Britain. Richardson further challenges claims (by African scholars) that the slave trade caused widespread depopulation and economic distress in Africa—indeed that it caused the "underdevelopment" of Africa. Admitting the horrible suffering of slaves, he notes that many Africans benefited directly, because the first stage of the trade was always firmly in the hands of Africans. European slave ships waited at ports to purchase cargoes of people who were captured in the hinterland by African dealers and tribal leaders. Richardson finds that the "terms of trade" (how much the ship owners paid for the slave cargo) moved heavily in favor of the Africans after about 1750. That is, indigenous elites inside West and Central Africa made large and growing profits from slavery, thus increasing their wealth and power.

Economic historian Stanley Engerman finds that even without subtracting the associated costs of the slave trade (e.g., shipping costs, slave mortality, mortality of British people in Africa, defense costs) or reinvestment of profits back into the slave trade, the total profits from the slave trade and of West Indian plantations amounted to less than 5% of the British economy during any year of the Industrial Revolution. Engerman’s 5% figure gives as much as possible in terms of benefit of the doubt to the Williams argument, not solely because it does not take into account the associated costs of the slave trade to Britain, but also because it carries the full-employment assumption from economics and holds the gross value of slave trade profits as a direct contribution to Britain’s national income. Historian Richard Pares, in an article written before Williams's book, dismisses the influence of wealth generated from the West Indian plantations upon the financing of the Industrial Revolution, stating that whatever substantial flow of investment from West Indian profits into industry there was occurred after emancipation, not before.

Public health

A high priority for Imperial officials after 1850 was establishing a public health system in each colony. They applied the best practices as developed in Britain, using an elaborate administrative structure in each colony. The system depended on trained local elites and officials to carry out the sanitation improvements, quarantines, inoculations, hospitals, and local treatment centers that were needed. For example, local midwives were trained to provide maternal and infant health care. Propaganda campaigns using posters, rallies, and later films were used to educate the general public. A serious challenge came from the intensified use of multiple transportation routes and the emergence of central hubs such as Hong Kong all of which facilitated this spread of epidemics such as the plague in the 1890s, thus sharply increasing the priority of public health programs.

The most advanced program in public health (apart from the dominions) was established in India, with the Indian Medical Service (IMS). The Raj set up the Calcutta School of Tropical Medicine between 1910 and its opening in 1921 as a postgraduate center for tropical medicine on the periphery of the Empire.

Religion

In the 18th century, and even more so in the 19th century, missionaries based in Britain saw the Empire as a fertile field for proselytizing for Christianity. All the main denominations were involved, including the Church of England, the Presbyterians of Scotland, and the Nonconformists. Much of the enthusiasm emerged from the Evangelical revival.

Before the American Revolution, Anglican and Methodist missionaries were active in the 13 Colonies. The Methodists, led by George Whitefield, were the most successful and after the revolution and entirely distinct American Methodist denomination emerged that became the largest Protestant denomination in the new United States. A major problem for colonial officials was the demand of the Church of England to set up an American bishop; this was strongly opposed by most of the Americans had never happened. Increasingly colonial officials took a neutral position on religious matters, even in those colonies such as Virginia where the Church of England was officially established, but in practice controlled by laymen in the local vestries. After the Americans broke free, British officials decided to enhance the power and wealth of the Church of England in all the settler colonies, especially British North America (Canada).

Missionary societies funded their own operations that were not supervised or directed by the Colonial Office. Tensions emerged between the missionaries and the colonial officials. The latter feared that missionaries might stir up trouble or encourage the natives to challenge colonial authority. In general, colonial officials were much more comfortable with working with the established local leadership, including the native religions, rather than introducing the divisive force of Christianity. This proved especially troublesome in India, were very few local elites were attracted to Christianity. In Africa, especially, the missionaries made many converts. Of the 21st century there were more Anglicans in Nigeria than in England.

Missionaries increasingly came to focus on education, medical help, and long-term modernization of the native personality to inculcate European middle-class values. They established schools and medical clinics. Christian missionaries played a public role, especially in promoting sanitation and public health. Many were trained as physicians, or took special courses in public health and tropical medicine at Livingstone College, London.

Indirect control

Main article: indirect rule

Some British colonies were ruled directly by the Colonial Office in London, while others were ruled indirectly through local rulers who are supervised behind the scenes by British advisors. In 1890 Zanzibar became a protectorate (not a colony) of Britain. Prime minister Salisbury explained his position:

The condition of a protected dependency is more acceptable to the half civilised races, and more suitable for them than direct dominion. It is cheaper, simpler, less wounding to their self-esteem, gives them more career as public officials, and spares of unnecessary contact with white men.

The Princely States of India were ruled indirectly. So too was much of the West African holdings.

Environment

In recent years scholars have examined the environmental impact of the Empire. The discovery and commercial or scientific use of new plants was an important concern in the 18th and 19th centuries. The efficient use of rivers through dams and irrigation projects was an expensive but important method of raising agricultural productivity. Searching for more efficient ways of using natural resources, the British moved flora, fauna and commodities around the world, sometimes resulting in ecological disruption and radical environmental change. Imperialism also stimulated more modern attitudes toward nature and subsidized botany and agricultural research.

Regions

13 American colonies

Main articles: Thirteen Colonies and American Revolution

The first British empire centered on the 13 American colonies, which attracted large numbers of settlers from across Britain. Much of the historiography concerns the reasons the Americans revolted in the 1660s and 1670s and successfully broke away. The mainstream of historiography emphasizes the growth of American consciousness and nationalism, and it's Republican value system but stood in opposition to the aristocratic viewpoint of British leaders. However, in 1900 - 1930s the "Imperial School," including Herbert L. Osgood, George Louis Beer, Charles M. Andrews and Lawrence Gipson took a favorable view of the benefits of empire, emphasizing its successful economic integration.

Mercantilism was the basic policy imposed by Britain on its colonies. Mercantilism meant that the government and the merchants became partners with the goal of increasing political power and private wealth, to the exclusion of other empires. The government protected its merchants—and kept others out—by trade barriers, regulations, and subsidies to domestic industries in order to maximize exports from and minimize imports to the realm. The government had to fight smuggling—which became a favorite American technique in the 18th century to circumvent the restrictions on trading with the French, Spanish or Dutch. The goal of mercantilism was to run trade surpluses, so that gold and silver would pour into London. The government took its share through duties and taxes, with the remainder going to merchants in Britain. The government spent much of its revenue on a superb Royal Navy, which not only protected the British colonies but threatened the colonies of the other empires, and sometimes seized them. Thus the British Navy captured New Amsterdam (New York) in 1664. The colonies were captive markets for British industry, and the goal was to enrich the mother country.

Australia

Main articles: History of Australia (1788–1850) and History of Australia

Australia marks the beginning of the Second British Empire. It was planned by the government in London and designed as a replacement for the lost American colonies. The American Loyalist James Matra in 1783 wrote "A Proposal for Establishing a Settlement in New South Wales" proposing the establishment of a colony composed of American Loyalists, Chinese and South Sea Islanders (but not convicts). Matra reasoned that the land country was suitable for plantations of sugar, cotton and tobacco; New Zealand timber and hemp or flax could prove valuable commodities; it could form a base for Pacific trade; and it could be a suitable compensation for displaced American Loyalists. At the suggestion of Secretary of State Lord Sydney, Matra amended his proposal to include convicts as settlers, considering that this would benefit both "Economy to the Publick, & Humanity to the Individual". The government adopted the basics of Matra’s plan in 1784, and funded the settlement of convicts.

Canada

Main article: History of Canada

Canadian historian Carl Berger argues that an influential section of English Canadians embraced an ideology of imperialism as a way to enhance Canada's own power position in the international system, as well as for more traditional reasons of Anglophillia. This was the first book that identified Canadian imperialism as a distinct ideology, rival to anti-imperial Canadian nationalism or pro-American continentalism, the other nationalisms in Canada.

India

Main article: British Raj

Further information: Economic history of India

Debate continues about the economic impact of British imperialism on India. The issue was actually raised by conservative British politician Edmund Burke who in the 1780s vehemently attacked the East India Company, claiming that Warren Hastings and other top officials had ruined the Indian economy and society. Indian historian Rajat Kanta Ray (1998) continues this line of attack, saying the new economy brought by the British in the 18th century was a form of "plunder" and a catastrophe for the traditional economy of Mughal India. Ray accuses the British of depleting the food and money stocks and imposing high taxes that helped cause the terrible famine of 1770, which killed a third of the people of Bengal.

Rejecting the Indian nationalist account of the British as alien aggressors, seizing power by brute force and impoverishing all of India, British historian P. J. Marshall argues that the British were not in full control but instead were players in what was primarily an Indian play and in which their rise to power depended upon excellent cooperation with Indian elites. Marshall admits that much of his interpretation is still rejected by many historians. Marshall argues that recent scholarship has reinterpreted the view that the prosperity of the formerly benign Mughal rule gave way to poverty and anarchy. Marshall argues the British takeover did not make any sharp break with the past. The British largely delegated control to regional Mughal rulers and sustained a generally prosperous economy for the rest of the 18th century. Marshall notes the British went into partnership with Indian bankers and raised revenue through local tax administrators and kept the old Mughal rates of taxation. Professor Ray agrees that the East India Company inherited an onerous taxation system that took one-third of the produce of Indian cultivators.

The New Imperial History

Since the 1990s a new set of approaches to imperial history have developed and these are often grouped together under the heading of the "new imperial history". These approaches have been distinguished by two features. Firstly, they have suggested that the British empire was a cultural project as well as a set of political and economic relationships. As a result, these historians have stressed the ways in which empire building shaped the cultures of both colonized peoples and Britons themselves. In particular they have shown the ways in which British imperialism rested upon ideas about cultural difference and in turn how British colonialism reshaped understandings of race and gender in both the colonies and at home in Britain. Mrinalini Sinha's Colonial Masculinity (1995) showed how supposed British manliness and ideas about the effeminacy of some Indians influenced colonial policy and Indian nationalist thought. Antoinette Burton has been a key figure and her Burdens of History (1995) showed how white British feminists in the Victorian period appropriated imperialist rhetoric to claim a role for themselves in 'saving' native women and thereby strengthened their own claims to equality in Britain. Historians like Sinha, Burton, and Catherine Hall have used this approach to argue that British culture at 'home' was profoundly shaped by the empire during the 19th century.

The second feature that defines the new imperial history is its stress on the flows that connected different parts of the empire together. Both Burton and Sinha stressed the ways in which the politics of gender and race linked Britain and India. Sinha suggested that these linkages were part of an 'imperial social formation', an uneven but integrative set of arguments, ideas and institutions that connected Britain to its colonies. More recent work by scholars like Alan Lester and Tony Ballantyne (historian) have stressed the importance of the networks that made up the empire. Lester's Imperial Networks (2001) reconstructed some of the debates and policies that linked Britain and South Africa during the 19th century. Ballantyne's Orientalism and Race developed an influential new model for writing about colonialism in highlighting the 'webs of empire' that he suggested made up the empire. These webs were made up of the flows of ideas, books, arguments, money, and people that not only moved between London and Britain's colonies, but also moved directly from colony to colony, from places like India to New Zealand. Many historians now focus on these 'networks' and 'webs' and Alison Games has used this as a model for studying the pattern of early English imperialism as well.

See also

• Imperialism
• International relations of the Great Powers (1814–1919)
• Timeline of imperialism
• Pageant of Empire
• The Cambridge History of the British Empire
• The Oxford History of the British Empire

Further reading

Basic bibliography

• Bayly, C. A. ed. Atlas of the British Empire (1989). survey by scholars; heavily illustrated
• Brendon, Piers. "A Moral Audit of the British Empire." History Today, (Oct 2007), Vol. 57 Issue 10, pp 44–47, online at EBSCO
• Brendon, Piers. The Decline and Fall of the British Empire, 1781-1997 (2008), wide ranging survey
• Bryant, Arthur. The History of Britain and the British Peoples, 3 vols. (1984–90), popular.
• Dalziel, Nigel. The Penguin Historical Atlas of the British Empire (2006), 144 pp
• Darwin, John. The Empire Project: The Rise and Fall of the British World-System, 1830-1970 (2009) excerpt and text search
• Darwin, John. Unfinished Empire: The Global Expansion of Britain (2013)
• Ferguson, Niall. Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power (2002),
• Howe, Stephen ed., "The New Imperial Histories Reader" (2009)
• Jackson, Ashley. The British Empire: A Very Short Introduction (2013) excerpt
• James, Lawrence. The Rise and Fall of the British Empire (1998). A one-volume history of the Empire, from the American colonies to the handover of Hong Kong.
• Marshall, P. J. (ed.), The Cambridge Illustrated History of the British Empire (1996).
• Simms, Brendan. Three Victories and a Defeat: The Rise and Fall of the First British Empire (2008), 800pp excerpt and text search
• Stockwell, Sarah, ed. The British Empire: Themes and Perspectives (2008) 355pp.

Overviews

• Belich, James. Replenishing the Earth: The Settler Revolution and the Rise of the Angloworld, 1780-1930 (Oxford University Press, 2009), 448pp. focus on British settlement colonies of Canada, Australia and New Zealand, emphasizing the heavy British investments involved
• Black, Jeremy. The British Seaborne Empire (2004)
• Brendon, Piers. "A Moral Audit of the British Empire." History Today, (Oct 2007), Vol. 57 Issue 10, pp 44–47, online at EBSCO
• Brendon, Piers. The Decline and Fall of the British Empire, 1781-1997 (2008)
• Buckner, Phillip, ed. Canada and the British Empire (2010)
• Cain, P. J. and A.G. Hopkins. British Imperialism, 1688-2000 (2nd ed. 2001), 739pp, detailed economic history that presents the new "gentlemanly capitalists" thesis
• Colley, Linda. Captives: Britain, Empire, and the World, 1600-1850 (2004), 464pp
• Darwin, John. The Empire Project: The Rise and Fall of the British World-System, 1830-1970 (Cambridge University Press, 2009) 800 pp. excerpt and text search
• Darwin, John. Unfinished Empire: The Global Expansion of Britain (London: Allen Lane, 2012), 478pp excerpt
• Ferguson, Niall. Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power (2002),
• Hyam, Ronald. Britain's Imperial Century, 1815-1914: A Study of Empire and Expansion (1993).
• James, Lawrence. The Rise and Fall of the British Empire (1997), very highly regarded survey.
• Judd, Denis. Empire: The British Imperial Experience, From 1765 to the Present (1996). online edition
• Lloyd; T. O. The British Empire, 1558-1995 Oxford University Press, 1996 online edition
• Louis, William. Roger (general editor), The Oxford History of the British Empire, 5 vols. (1998–99).
  • vol 1 "The Origins of Empire" ed. by Nicholas Canny
  • vol 2 "The Eighteenth Century" ed. by P. J. Marshall excerpt and text search
  • vol 3 The Nineteenth Century edited by William Roger Louis, Alaine M. Low, Andrew Porter; (1998). 780 pgs. online edition
  • vol 4 The Twentieth Century edited by Judith M. Brown, (1998). 773 pgs online edition
  • vol 5 "Historiography" ed, by Robin W. Winks (1999)
• Marshall, P.J. (ed.) The Cambridge Illustrated History of the British Empire (1996). excerpt and text search
• Robinson, Howard . The Development of the British Empire (1922), 465pp 30 online edition
• Rose, J. Holland, A. P. Newton and E. A. Benians (gen. eds.), The Cambridge History of the British Empire, 9 vols. (1929–61); vol 1: "The Old Empire from the Beginnings to 1783" 934pp online edition Volume I
• Schreuder, Deryck, and Stuart Ward, eds. Australia's Empire (Oxford History of the British Empire Companion Series) (2010)
• Smith, Simon C. British Imperialism 1750-1970 (1998). brief
• Stockwell, Sarah, ed. The British Empire: Themes and Perspectives (2008) 355pp.

Atlases, geography, environment

• Bartholomew, John. Atlas of the British empire throughout the world (1868 edition) online 1868 edition; (1877 edition) online 1877 edition, the maps are poorly reproduced
• Bayly, C. A. ed. Atlas of the British Empire (1989). survey by scholars; heavily illustrated
• Beattie, James. "Recent Themes in the Environmental History of the British Empire," History Compass (Feb 2012) 10#2 pp 129–139
• Beinart, William, ed. Environment and Empire (Oxford History of the British Empire Companion) (2007)
• Dalziel, Nigel. The Penguin Historical Atlas of the British Empire (2006), 144 pp
• Faunthorpe, John Pincher. Geography of the British colonies and foreign possessions (1874) online edition
• Lucas, Charles Prestwood. A Historical Geography of the British Colonies: part 2: West Indies (1890) online edition
• Lucas, Charles Prestwood. A Historical Geography of the British Colonies: part 4: South and East Africa (1900) online edition
• Olson, James S. and Robert S. Shadle; Historical Dictionary of the British Empire (1996) online edition
• Porter, A. N. Atlas of British Overseas Expansion (1994)
• The Year-book of the Imperial Institute of the United Kingdom, the colonies and India: a statistical record of the resources and trade of the colonial and Indian possessions of the British Empire (2nd. ed. 1893) 880pp; online edition

Political, economic and intellectual studies

• Andrews, Kenneth R. Trade, Plunder and Settlement: Maritime Enterprise and the Genesis of the British Empire, 1480–1630 (1984).
• Armitage, David. The Ideological Origins of the British Empire (2000). online edition
• Armitage, David, 'Greater Britain: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis?' American Historical Review, 104 (1999), 427–45. in JSTOR
• Armitage, David, ed. Theories of Empire, 1450–1800 (1998).
• Armitage, David, and M. J. Braddick, eds. The British Atlantic World, 1500–1800, (2002)
• Ballantyne, Tony, "Orientalism and Race: Aryanism in the British Empire
• Barker, Sir Ernest, The Ideas and Ideals of the British Empire (1941).
• Baumgart, W. Imperialism: The Idea and Reality of British and French Colonial Expansion, 1880-1914 (1982)
• Bayly, C. A. Imperial Meridian: The British Empire and the World, 1780-1831 (1989).
• Bell, Duncan The Idea of Greater Britain: Empire and the Future of World Order, 1860-1900 (2007)
• Bell, Duncan (ed.) Victorian Visions of Global Order: Empire and International Relations in Nineteenth Century Political Thought (2007)
• Bennett, George (ed.), The Concept of Empire: Burke to Attlee, 1774–1947 (1953).
• Blaut, J. M. The Colonizers' Model of the World 1993
• Bowen, H. V. Business of Empire: The East India Company and Imperial Britain, 1756-1833 (2006), 304pp
• Cain, P. J. and A.G. Hopkins. British Imperialism, 1688-2000 (2nd ed. 2001), 739pp, detailed economic history that presents the new "gentlemanly capitalists" thesis
  • Cain, P. J.. and A. G. Hopkins. "Gentlemanly Capitalism and British Expansion Overseas I. The Old Colonial System, 1688-1850," Economic History Review, 2nd ser. 39, 4 (1986): 501-525 in JSTOR
  • Cain, P. J.. and A. G. Hopkins. "Gentlemanly Capitalism and British Expansion Overseas II: New Imperialism, 1850-1945," The Economic History Review Vol. 40, No. 1 (Feb., 1987), pp. 1–26 in JSTOR
  • Cain, P. J.. and A. G. Hopkins. "The Political Economy of British Expansion Overseas, 1750-1914," The Economic History ReviewVol. 33, No. 4 (Nov., 1980), pp. 463–490 in JSTOR
• Darby, Philip. The Three Faces of Imperialism: British and American Approaches to Asia and Africa, 1870-1970 (1987)
• Doyle, Michael W. Empires (1986).
• Drescher, Seymour. Abolition: A History of Slavery and Antislavery (2009) excerpt and text search
• Dumett, Raymond E. Gentlemanly Capitalism and British Imperialism: The New Debate on Empire. (1999). 234 pp.
• Elliott, J.H., Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America 1492-1830 (2006), a major interpretation excerpt and text search
• Etherington, Norman. Missions and Empire (Oxford History of the British Empire Companion Series) (2008) on Protestant missions
• Gallagher, John, and Ronald Robinson. "The Imperialism of Free Trade" The Economic History Review, Vol. 6, No. 1 (1953), pp. 1–15 in JSTOR, online free at Mt. Holyoke highly influential interpretation in its day
• Gilbert, Helen, and Chris Tiffin, eds. Burden or Benefit?: Imperial Benevolence and Its Legacies (2008)
• Harlow, V. T. The Founding of the Second British Empire, 1763–1793, 2 vols. (1952–64).
• Heinlein, Frank. British Government Policy and Decolonisation, 1945-1963: Scrutinising the Official Mind (2002).
• Herbertson, A. J. The Oxford Survey of the British Empire, (1914) online edition
• Ingram, Edward. The British Empire as a World Power: Ten Studies (2001)
• Jackson, Ashley. British Empire and the Second World War (2006)
• James, Lawrence. The Rise and Fall of the British Empire (1994).
• Johnson, Robert. British Imperialism (2003). historiography
• Keith, Arthur Berriedale (1921). War government of the British dominions. , First World War
• Kennedy, Paul, The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery (1976).
• Kenny, Kevin, ed. Ireland and the British Empire (2004).
• Koehn, Nancy F. The Power of Commerce: Economy and Governance in the First British Empire (1994) online edition
• Knorr, Klaus E., British Colonial Theories 1570–1850 (1944).
• Lester, Alan, "Imperial Networks: Creating Identities in Nineteenth-Century South Africa and Britain", (2001).
• Louis, William Roger. The British Empire in the Middle East, 1945-1951: Arab Nationalism, the United States, and Postwar Imperialism (1984) online edition
• Louis, William Roger. Imperialism at Bay: The United States and the Decolonization of the British Empire, 1941-1945 (1978) online edition
• Marshall, Peter, and Glyn Williams, eds. The British Atlantic Empire before the American Revolution (1980) online edition
• Mehta, Uday Singh, Liberalism and Empire: A Study in Nineteenth-Century British Liberal Thought (1999).
• Satia, Priya. Spies in Arabia: The Great War and the Cultural Foundations of Britain's Covert Empire in the Middle East 2008.
• Taylor, Alan. The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, and Indian Allies (2010), on War of 1812
• Tinker, Hugh. A New System of Slavery: The Export of Indian Labour Overseas, 1830-1920 (1974).
• Webster, Anthony. Gentlemen Capitalists: British Imperialism in South East Asia, 1770-1890 (1998)

Foreign policy

• Bartlett, C. J. British Foreign Policy in the Twentieth Century (1989)
• Samuel Flagg Bemis (1935). The Diplomacy of the American Revolution. American Historical Association. , a standard history
• Black, Jeremy. America or Europe? British Foreign Policy, 1739-63 (1998) online edition
• Black, Jeremy, ed. Knights Errant and True Englishmen: British Foreign Policy, 1660-1800 (2003) online edition, essays by scholars
• Dilks, David. Retreat from Power: 1906-39 v. 1: Studies in Britain's Foreign Policy of the Twentieth Century (1981); Retreat from Power: After 1939 v. 2 (1981)
• Ferguson, Niall. Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power (2002),
• Hyam, Ronald. Britain's Imperial Century, 1815-1914: A Study of Empire and Expansion (1993).
• Jones, J. R. Britain and the World, 1649-1815 (1980)
• Langer, William L. The Diplomacy of Imperialism, 1890-1902 (2nd ed. 1950)
• Mulligan, William, and Brendan Simms, eds. The Primacy of Foreign Policy in British History, 1660-2000 (Palgrave Macmillan; 2011) 345 pages
• Otte, T.G., The China Question: Great Power Rivalry and British Isolation, 1894-1905 (Oxford University Press, 2007), with reference to influence of Joseph Chamberlain on policy of Salisbury's administration.
• Simms, Brendan. Three Victories and a Defeat: The Rise and Fall of the First British Empire, 1714–1783 (2008) 802 pp., detailed coverage of diplomacy from London viewpoint
• Vickers, Rhiannon. The Evolution of Labour's Foreign Policy, 1900-51 (2003) online edition, focus on decolonization
• Ward, A.W. and G.P. Gooch, eds. The Cambridge History of British Foreign Policy, 1783-1919 (3 vol, 1921–23), old classic
  • Volume I: 1783-1815 online
• Webster, Charles. The Foreign Policy of Palmerston (1951) online edition
• Wiener, Joel H. ed. Great Britain: Foreign Policy and the Span of Empire, 1689-1971: A Documentary History (1972) 876pp online edition; primary sources

Social and cultural studies

• Auerbach, Sascha. Race, Law, and "The Chinese Puzzle" in Imperial Britain (2009).
• August, Thomas G. The Selling of the Empire: British and French Imperialist Propaganda, 1890-1940 (1985)
• Bailyn, Bernard, and Philip D. Morgan (eds.), Strangers within the Realm: Cultural Margins of the First British Empire (1991)
• Brantlinger, Patrick. Rule of Darkness: British Literature and Imperialism, 1830-1914 (1988).
• Broich, John. "Engineering the Empire: British Water Supply Systems and Colonial Societies, 1850-1900." Journal of British Studies 2007 46(2): 346-365. Issn: 0021-9371 Fulltext: at Ebsco
• Burton, Antoinette, "Burdens of History: British Feminists, Indian Women, and Imperial Culture, 1865-1915.
• Clayton, Martin. and Bennett Zon. Music and Orientalism in the British Empire, 1780s-1940s (2007) excerpt and text search
• Constantine, Stephen. "British Emigration to the Empire-commonwealth since 1880: from Overseas Settlement to Diaspora?" Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 2003 31(2): 16-35. ISSN 0308-6534
• Etherington, Norman. Missions and Empire (Oxford History of the British Empire Companion Series) (2008) on Protestant missions
• Finn, Margot. "Colonial gifts: Family politics and the exchange of goods in British India, c. 1780-1820". Modern Asian Studies 40 (1): 203–231. doi:10.1017/s0026749x06001739. 
• Grant, Kevin. A Civilised Savagery: Britain and the New Slaveries in Africa, 1884-1926 (2005).
• Hall, Catherine, and Sonya O. Rose. At Home with the Empire: Metropolitan Culture and the Imperial World (2007)
• Hall, Catherine. Civilising Subjects: Colony and Metropole in the English Imagination, 1830–1867 (2002)
• Harper, Marjory, and Stephen Constantine, eds. Migration and Empire (The Oxford History of the British Empire Companion Series) (2010)
• Hodgkins, Christopher. Reforming Empire: Protestant Colonialism and Conscience in British Literature (U of Missouri Press, 2002) online edition
• Hyam, Ronald. Empire and Sexuality: The British Experience (1990).
• Karatani, Rieko. Defining British Citizenship: Empire, Commonwealth, and Modern Britain (2003) online edition
• Lassner, Phyllis. Colonial Strangers: Women Writing the End of the British Empire (2004) online edition
• Lazarus, Neil, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Postcolonial Literary Studies (2004)
• Levine, Philippa, ed. Gender and Empire'. Oxford History of the British Empire (2004).
• Look Lai, Walton. Indentured Labor, Caribbean Sugar: Chinese and Indian Migrants to the British West Indies, 1838-1918 1993.
• McDevitt, Patrick F. May the Best Man Win: Sport, Masculinity, and Nationalism in Great Britain and the Empire, 1880-1935 (2004).
• Morgan, Philip D. and Hawkins, Sean, ed. Black Experience and the Empire (2004).
• Morris, Jan. The Spectacle of Empire: Style, Effect and Pax Britannica (1982).
• Naithani, Sadhana. The Story-Time of the British Empire: Colonial and Postcolonial Folkloristics (2010)
• Porter, Andrew. Religion Versus Empire?: British Protestant Missionaries and Overseas Expansion, 1700-1914 (2004)
• Potter, Simon J. News and the British World: The Emergence of an Imperial Press System. Clarendon, 2003
• Price, Richard. "One Big Thing: Britain, its Empire, and Their Imperial Culture." Journal of British Studies 2006 45(3): 602-627. Issn: 0021-9371 Fulltext: Ebsco
• Price, Richard. Making Empire: Colonial Encounters and the Creation of Imperial Rule in Nineteenth-Century Africa 2008.
• Lake, Marilyn and Reynolds, David. Drawing the Global Colour Line: White Men's Countries and the International Challenge of Racial Equality (2008).
• Rubinstein, W. D. Capitalism, Culture, and Decline in Britain, 1750-1990 (1993),
• Rüger, Jan. "Nation, Empire and Navy: Identity Politics in the United Kingdom 1887-1914" Past & Present 2004 (185): 159-187. ISSN 0031-2746 online
• Sauerberg, Lars Ole. Intercultural Voices in Contemporary British Literature: The Implosion of Empire (2001) online edition
• Sinha, Mrinalini, "Colonial Masculinity: The 'Manly Englishman' and the 'Effeminate Bengali' in the Late Nineteenth Century" (1995)
• Spurr, David. The Rhetoric of Empire: Colonial Discourse in Journalism, Travel Writing and Imperial Administration (1993).
• Trollope, Joanna. Britannia's Daughters: Women of the British Empire (1983).
• Wilson, Kathleen. The Island Race: Englishness, Empire, and Gender in the Eighteenth Century (2003).
• Wilson, Kathleen, ed. A New Imperial History: Culture Identity, and Modernity in Britain and the Empire, 1660–1840 (2004)
• Wilson, Kathleen (2011). "Rethinking the Colonial State: Family, Gender, and Governmentality in Eighteenth-Century British Frontiers". American Historical Review 116 (5): 1294–1322. doi:10.1086/ahr.116.5.1294. 

Regional studies

• Bailyn, Bernard. Strangers Within the Realm: Cultural Margins of the First British Empire (1991) excerpt and text search
• Bruckner, Phillip. Canada and the British Empire (The Oxford History of the British Empire) (2010) excerpt and text search
• Kenny, Kevin, ed. Ireland and the British Empire (Oxford History of the British Empire Companion) (2006) excerpt and text search
• Landsman, Ned. Crossroads of Empire: The Middle Colonies in British North America (Regional Perspectives on Early America) (2010) excerpt and text search
• Schreuder, Deryck, and Stuart Ward, eds. Australia's Empire (Oxford History of the British Empire Companion) (2010) excerpt and text search

Historiography and memory

• Adams, James Truslow (1927). "On the Term 'British Empire'". American Historical Review 22: 485–9. JSTOR 1837801. 
• Barone, Charles A. Marxist Thought on Imperialism: Survey and Critique (1985)
• Beattie, James (2012). "Recent Themes in the Environmental History of the British Empire". History Compass 10 (2): 129–139. doi:10.1111/j.1478-0542.2011.00824.x. 
• Burton, Antoinette and Isabel Hofmeyr, eds. Ten Books That Shaped the British Empire: Creating an Imperial Commons (2014) excerpt
• Cannadine, David, "'Big Tent' Historiography: Transatlantic Obstacles and Opportunities in Writing the History of Empire," Common Knowledge (2005) 11#3 pp: 375-392 in Project Muse
• Cannadine, David. Ornamentalism: How the British Saw Their Empire (2002)
• Cannadine, David. "The Empire Strikes Back," Past & Present No. 147 (May, 1995), pp. 180–194 in JSTOR
• Colley, Linda. "What Is Imperial History Now?" in David Cannadine, ed. What Is History Now? (2002), 132–47.
• Drayton, Richard. "Where does the world historian write from? Objectivity, moral conscience and the past and present of imperialism." Journal of Contemporary History (2011) 46#3 pp: 671-685. online
• Fieldhouse, David. "Can Humpty‐Dumpty be put together again? Imperial history in the 1980s." Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History (1984) 12#2 pp: 9-23.
• Ghosh, Durba. "Another set of imperial turns?." American Historical Review (2012) 117#3 pp: 772-793. online
• Griffin, Patrick. "In Retrospect: Lawrence Henry Gipson's The British Empire before the American Revolution" Reviews in American History, Vol. 31, No. 2 (Jun., 2003), pp. 171–183 in JSTOR
• MacKenzie, John M. "The British Empire: Ramshackle or Rampaging? A Historiographical Reflection." Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 43#1 (2015): 99-124. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03086534.2015.997120
• Morris, Richard B. "The Spacious Empire of Lawrence Henry Gipson," William and Mary Quarterly, (1967) 24#2 pp:170–189 in JSTOR; covers the "Imperial School" of Americanscholars, 1900-1940s
• Peers, Douglas M. "Is Humpty Dumpty back together again?: The revival of imperial history and the Oxford History of the British Empire." Journal of World History (2002) 13#2 pp: 451-467. online
• Pocock, J. G. A. (1982). "The Limits and Divisions of British History: In Search of the Unknown Subject". American Historical Review 87: 311–36. doi:10.2307/1870122. JSTOR 1870122. 
• Prakash, Gyan. "Writing Post-Orientalist Histories of the Third World: Perspectives from Indian Historiography," Comparative Studies in Society and History (1990) 32#2 pp: 383-408 in JSTOR
• Stern, Philip J (2009). "History and Historiography of the English East India Company: Past, Present, and Future". History Compass 7 (4): 1146–1180. doi:10.1111/j.1478-0542.2009.00617.x. 
• Syriatou, Athena (2013). "National, Imperial, Colonial and the Political: British Imperial Histories and their Descendants" (PDF). HISTOREIN 12: 38–67. doi:10.12681/historein.181. 
• Thompson, Andrew. "Is Humpty Dumpty Together Again? Imperial History and the Oxford History of the British Empire." Twentieth Century British History (2001) 12#4 pp: 511-527.
• Webster, Anthony. The Debate on the Rise of British Imperialism (Issues in Historiography) (2006)
• Wilson, Kathleen, ed. A New Imperial History: Culture, Identity and Modernity in Britain and the Empire, 1660-1840 (2004). excerpt and text search
• Winks, Robin, ed. Historiography (1999) vol. 5 in William Roger Louis, eds. The Oxford History of the British Empire
• Winks, Robin W. "Problem Child of British History: The British Empire-Commonwealth," in Richard Schlatter, ed., Recent Views on British History: Essays on Historical Writing since 1966 (Rutgers UP, 1984), pp 451 – 492

Primary sources

• Board of Education. Educational Systems of the Chief Crown Colonies and Possessions of the British Empire (1905). 340pp online edition
• Boehmer, Elleke ed. Empire Writing: An Anthology of Colonial Literature, 1870-1918 (1998) online edition
• Brooks, Chris. and Peter Faulkner (eds.), The White Man's Burdens: An Anthology of British Poetry of the Empire (Exeter UP, 1996).
• Hall, Catherine. ed. Cultures of Empire: A Reader: Colonizers in Britain and the Empire in the 19th and 20th Centuries (2000)

External links

• primary sources and older secondary sources