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

British Empire

The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...

. 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

American Revolution

The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...

), as well as India (independent in 1947)

British Raj

British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...

and the African colonies (independent in the 1960s). 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

Historiography

Historiography refers either to the study of the history and methodology of history as a discipline, or to a body of historical work on a specialized topic...

has recently emphasized issues of language, religion, gender, and identity.

Idea of Empire

Armitage (2008) traces the emergence of a British imperial ideology from the time of Henry VIII

Henry VIII of England

Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...

to that of Robert Walpole

Robert Walpole

Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, KG, KB, PC , known before 1742 as Sir Robert Walpole, was a British statesman who is generally regarded as having been the first Prime Minister of Great Britain....

in the 1720s and 1730s. Using a close reading of English, Scottish and Irish authors from Sir Thomas Smith

Thomas Smith (diplomat)

Sir Thomas Smith was an English scholar and diplomat.He was born at Saffron Walden in Essex. He was educated at Queens' College, Cambridge, where he became a fellow in 1530, and in 1533 was appointed a public reader or professor. He lectured in the schools on natural philosophy, and on Greek in...

(1513–77) to David Hume

David Hume

David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, known especially for his philosophical empiricism and skepticism. He was one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment...

(1711–1776), Armitage argues that the imperial ideology was both as 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

Atlantic history

Atlantic history is a specialty field in history that studies of the Atlantic World in the early modern period. It is premised on the idea that, following the rise of sustained European contact with the New World in the 16th century, the continents that bordered the Atlantic Ocean—the...

. 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

Republicanism

Republicanism is the ideology of governing a nation as a republic, where the head of state is appointed by means other than heredity, often elections. The exact meaning of republicanism varies depending on the cultural and historical context...

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 to the success of the state, arguing 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

Francis Hutcheson

Francis Hutcheson may refer to:*Francis Hutcheson *Francis Hutcheson -See also:*Frank Hutchison, blues musician*Francis Hutchinson, British clergyman...

and David Hume

David Hume

, presaging the republicanism

Republicanism in the United States

Republicanism is the political value system that has been a major part of American civic thought since the American Revolution. It stresses liberty and inalienable rights as central values, makes the people as a whole sovereign, supports activist government to promote the common good, rejects...

that swept the American colonies in the 1770s and led to the creation of a rival empire.

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

Joseph Chamberlain

Joseph Chamberlain was an influential British politician and statesman. Unlike most major politicians of the time, he was a self-made businessman and had not attended Oxford or Cambridge University....

. 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

John A. Hobson

John Atkinson Hobson , commonly known as John A. Hobson or J. A. Hobson, was an English economist and critic of imperialism, widely popular as a lecturer and writer.-Life:...

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

Joseph Schumpeter

Joseph Alois Schumpeter was an Austrian-Hungarian-American economist and political scientist. He popularized the term "creative destruction" in economics.-Life:...

(1883–1950), Thorstein Veblen

Thorstein Veblen

Thorstein Bunde Veblen, born Torsten Bunde Veblen was an American economist and sociologist, and a leader of the so-called institutional economics movement...

(1857–1929), and Norman Angell

Norman Angell

Sir Ralph Norman Angell was an English lecturer, journalist, author, and Member of Parliament for the Labour Party.Angell was one of the principal founders of the Union of Democratic Control...

(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

Foot binding

Foot binding was the custom of binding the feet of young girls painfully tight to prevent further growth. The practice probably originated among court dancers in the early Song dynasty, but spread to upper class families and eventually became common among all classes. The tiny narrow feet were...

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

Edmund Burke

Edmund Burke PC was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher who, after moving to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party....

's long, but failed, attempt to impeach

Impeachment of Warren Hastings

The Impeachment of Warren Hastings was a failed attempt to impeach the former Governor-General of India Warren Hastings in the Parliament of Great Britain between 1788 and 1795. Hastings was accused of misconduct during his time in Calcutta particularly relating to mismanagement and personal...

Warren Hastings

Warren Hastings PC was the first Governor-General of India, from 1773 to 1785. He was famously accused of corruption in an impeachment in 1787, but was acquitted in 1795. He was made a Privy Councillor in 1814.-Early life:...

for his cruelties in India. The most successful development came in the abolition of slavery led by William Wilberforce

William Wilberforce

William Wilberforce was a British politician, a philanthropist and a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780, eventually becoming the independent Member of Parliament for Yorkshire...

and the Evangelicals, and the expansion of Christian missionary work. Edward Gibbon Wakefield

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

Edward Gibbon Wakefield was a British politician, the driving force behind much of the early colonisation of South Australia, and later New Zealand....

(1796–1852) spearheaded efforts to create model colonies (such as South Australia

South Australia

South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...

, Canada and New Zealand

History of New Zealand

The history of New Zealand dates back at least 700 years to when it was discovered and settled by Polynesians, who developed a distinct Māori culture centred on kinship links and land. The first European explorer to discover New Zealand was Abel Janszoon Tasman on 13 December 1642...

. 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

William Wilberforce

were primarily responsible.

Historical revisionism

Historical revisionism

In historiography, historical revisionism is the reinterpretation of orthodox views on evidence, motivations, and decision-making processes surrounding a historical event...

arrived with West Indian historian Eric Williams

Eric Williams

Eric Eustace Williams served as the first Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago. He served from 1956 until his death in 1981. He was also a noted Caribbean historian, and is widely regarded as "The Father of The Nation."...

in Capitalism and Slavery (1944), rejected this moral explanation and substituted a Marxist interpretation. He 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

Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...

. 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.

United States

Although American historians have always paid attention to the negative causes of the revolt by which the 13 colonies broke away from the Empire, around 1900 the "Imperial School," including Herbert L. Osgood

Herbert L. Osgood

Herbert Levi Osgood was an American historian of colonial American history. As a professor at Columbia University he directed numerous dissertations of scholars who became major historians...

, George Louis Beer

George Louis Beer

George Louis Beer was an American historian.Born in Staten Island, New York, he achieved success in the tobacco business. He studied at Columbia University and lectured on European History there from 1893 to 1897. After retiring from business, he wrote three books on the British-American...

, Charles M. Andrews and Lawrence Gipson took a highly favorable view of the benefits achieved by the economic integration of the Empire.

Mercantilism

Mercantilism

Mercantilism is the economic doctrine in which government control of foreign trade is of paramount importance for ensuring the prosperity and security of the state. In particular, it demands a positive balance of trade. Mercantilism dominated Western European economic policy and discourse from...

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 Amsterdam

New Amsterdam was a 17th-century Dutch colonial settlement that served as the capital of New Netherland. It later became New York City....

(New York) in 1664. The colonies were captive markets for British industry, and the goal was to enrich the mother country.

India

Debate continues about the economic impact of British imperialism on India. The issue was actually raised by conservative British politician Edmund Burke

Edmund Burke

who in the 1780s vehemently attacked the East India Company, claiming that Warren Hastings

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.

P. J. Marshall

P. J. Marshall

Peter James Marshall CBE, FBA is a British historian known for his work on the British empire, particularly the activities of British East India Company servants in 18th-century Bengal, and also the history of British involvement in North America during the same period.-Early life and education:He...

shows 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. British control was delegated largely through regional Mughal rulers and was sustained by 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. Instead of the Indian nationalist account of the British as alien aggressors, seizing power by brute force and impoverishing all of India, Marshall presents the interpretation, supported by many scholars in India and the West, in which 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 working in India, who prefer to 'bash the British'.

"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 ideas about British manliness and the supposed effeminacy of some Indians influenced colonial policy and Indian nationalist thought. Antoinette Burton's "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)

Tony Ballantyne (historian)

Tony Ballantyne is a New Zealand historian whose works examined the development of imperial intellectual and cultural life in Ireland, India, New Zealand, and Britain. He graduated BA at the University of Otago and obtained a PhD at the University of Cambridge under the supervision of Professor...

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.

The best introduction to this new approach is the recent anthology edited by Stephen Howe.

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
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)
James, Lawrence. The Rise and Fall of the British Empire (1997).
Marshall, P. J. (ed.), The Cambridge Illustrated History of the British Empire (1996).
Stockwell, Sarah, ed. The British Empire: Themes and Perspectives (2008) 355pp.

Overviews

Beinart, William, ed. Environment and Empire (Oxford History of the British Empire Companion) (2007)
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.
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.
P. J. Marshall
Peter James Marshall CBE, FBA is a British historian known for his work on the British empire, particularly the activities of British East India Company servants in 18th-century Bengal, and also the history of British involvement in North America during the same period.-Early life and education:He...

(ed.) The Cambridge Illustrated History of the British Empire (1996). excerpt and text search
Robinson, Howard . The Development of the British Empire (1922), 465pp 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 and reference

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
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)

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).
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
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).
Taylor, Alan. The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, and Indian Allies (2010), on War of 1812
War of 1812
The War of 1812 was a military conflict fought between the forces of the United States of America and those of the British Empire. The Americans declared war in 1812 for several reasons, including trade restrictions because of Britain's ongoing war with France, impressment of American merchant...
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)
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)
Mulligan, William, and Brendan Simms, eds. The Primacy of Foreign Policy in British History, 1660-2000 (Palgrave Macmillan; 2011) 345 pages
Vickers, Rhiannon. The Evolution of Labour's Foreign Policy, 1900-51 (2003) online edition, especially 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

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
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).
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
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)

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. "On the Term 'British Empire,'" American Historical Review, 22 (1927), 485–9; in JSTOR
Barone, Charles A. Marxist Thought on Imperialism: Survey and Critique (1985)
Cannadine, David, "'Big Tent' Historiography: Transatlantic Obstacles and Opportunities in Writing the History of Empire," Common Knowledge 11.3 (2005) 375-392 in Project Muse
Project MUSE
Project MUSE is an online database of current and back issues of peer-reviewed humanities and social sciences journals. It was founded in 1993 by Todd Kelley and Susan Lewis and is a project of the Johns Hopkins University Press and the Milton S. Eisenhower Library. It had support from the Mellon...
Cannadine, David. Ornamentalism: How the British Saw Their Empire (2002)
Colley, Linda. "What Is Imperial History Now?" in David Cannadine, ed. What Is History Now? (2002), 132–47.
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
Morris, Richard B. "The Spacious Empire of Lawrence Henry Gipson," William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Apr., 1967), pp. 170-189 in JSTOR
Pocock, J. G. A. 'The Limits and Divisions of British History: In Search of the Unknown Subject', American Historical Review, 87 (1982), 311–36.
Prakash, Gyan. “Writing Post-Orientalist Histories of the Third World: Perspectives from Indian Historiography,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 32, 2 (1990): 383-408 in JSTOR
Stern, Philip J. "History and Historiography of the English East India Company: Past, Present, and Future," History Compass (2009) Volume 7 Issue 4, pp 1146–1180
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

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

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