Author : Edward Ingram
Publisher : Psychology Press
Page : 308 pages
File Size : 30,50 MB
Release : 2001
Category : History
ISBN : 9780714651514
The essays redefine Great Britain as a world power and reinterpret the tensions that underpinned its grand strategy during its imperial heyday.
Author : William R. Nester
Publisher : University of Oklahoma Press
Page : 425 pages
File Size : 30,41 MB
Release : 2016-05-31
Category : History
ISBN : 0806155345
When the leaders of the French Revolution executed Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette in 1793, they sent a chilling message to the hereditary ruling orders in Europe. Believing that monarchy anywhere presented a threat to democratic rule in France, the leaders of the revolution declared war on European aristocracies, including those of Great Britain. For more than twenty years thereafter, France and England waged a protracted war that ended in British victory. In Titan, William R. Nester offers a deeply informed and thoroughly fascinating narrative of how England accomplished this remarkable feat. Between 1789 and 1815, British leaders devised, funded, and led seven coalitions against the revolutionary and Napoleonic governments of France. In each enterprise, statesmen and generals searched for order amid a complex welter of bureaucratic, political, economic, psychological, technological, and international forces. Nester combines biographies of great men—the likes of William Pitt, Horatio Nelson, and Arthur Wellesley—with an explanation of the critical decisions they made in Britain’s struggle for power and his own keen analysis of the forces that operated beyond their control. Their efforts would eventually crush France and Napoleon and establish a system of European power relations that prevented a world war for nearly a century. The interplay of individuals and events, the importance of conjunctures and contingency, the significance of Britain's island character and resources: all come into play in Nester's exploration of the art of British military diplomacy. The result is a comprehensive and insightful account of the endeavors of statesmen and generals to master the art of power in a complex battle for empire.
Author : T. G. Otte
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 331 pages
File Size : 43,56 MB
Release : 2019-09-26
Category : History
ISBN : 1107198852
Reshapes the discourse surrounding the nature of British global power in this crucial period of transformation in international politics.
Author : Niall Ferguson
Publisher : Penguin UK
Page : 681 pages
File Size : 22,80 MB
Release : 2012-10-25
Category : History
ISBN : 0241958512
Niall Ferguson's acclaimed bestseller on the highs and lows of Britain's empire 'A remarkably readable précis of the whole British imperial story - triumphs, deceits, decencies, kindnesses, cruelties and all' Jan Morris Once vast swathes of the globe were coloured imperial red and Britannia ruled not just the waves, but the prairies of America, the plains of Asia, the jungles of Africa and the deserts of Arabia. Just how did a small, rainy island in the North Atlantic achieve all this? And why did the empire on which the sun literally never set finally decline and fall? Niall Ferguson's acclaimed Empire brilliantly unfolds the imperial story in all its splendours and its miseries, showing how a gang of buccaneers and gold-diggers planted the seed of the biggest empire in all history - and set the world on the road to modernity. 'The most brilliant British historian of his generation ... Ferguson examines the roles of "pirates, planters, missionaries, mandarins, bankers and bankrupts" in the creation of history's largest empire ... he writes with splendid panache ... and a seemingly effortless, debonair wit' Andrew Roberts 'Dazzling ... wonderfully readable' New York Review of Books 'Empire is a pleasure to read and brims with insights and intelligence' Sunday Times
Author : Alex M Spencer
Publisher : Purdue University Press
Page : 331 pages
File Size : 41,89 MB
Release : 2020-06-15
Category : History
ISBN : 1557539421
British Imperial Air Power examines the air defense of Australia and New Zealand during the interwar period. It also demonstrates the difficulty of applying new military aviation technology to the defense of the global Empire and provides insight into the nature of the political relationship between the Pacific Dominions and Britain. Following World War I, both Dominions sought greater independence in defense and foreign policy. Public aversion to military matters and the economic dislocation resulting from the war and later the Depression left little money that could be provided for their respective air forces. As a result, the Empire’s air services spent the entire interwar period attempting to create a strategy in the face of these handicaps. In order to survive, the British Empire’s military air forces offered themselves as a practical and economical third option in the defense of Britain’s global Empire, intending to replace the Royal Navy and British Army as the traditional pillars of imperial defense.
Author : Ashley Jackson
Publisher : OUP Oxford
Page : 161 pages
File Size : 31,11 MB
Release : 2013-05-30
Category : History
ISBN : 0191654094
From the eighteenth century until the 1950s the British Empire was the biggest political entity in the world. The territories forming this empire ranged from tiny islands to vast segments of the world's major continental land masses. The British Empire left its mark on the world in a multitude of ways, many of them permanent. In this Very Short Introduction, Ashley Jackson introduces and defines the British Empire, reviewing its historiography by answering a series of key questions: What was the British Empire, and what were its main constituent parts? What were the phases of imperial expansion and contraction and the general causes of expansion and contraction? How was the Empire ruled? What were its economic effects? What were the cultural implications of empire, in Britain and its colonies? What was life like for people living under imperial rule? What are the legacies of the British Empire and how should we view its place in world history? ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Author : Professor Jeremy Black
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 352 pages
File Size : 18,73 MB
Release : 2002-01-04
Category : History
ISBN : 1135360790
In 1688, Britain was successfully invaded, its army and navy unable to prevent the overthrow of the government. 1815, Britain was the strongest power in the world with the most succesful navy and the largest empire. Britain had not only played a prominent role in the defeat of Napoleonic France, but had also established itself as a significant power in South Asia and was unsurpassed in her global reach. Her military strength was related to, and based on, one of the best systems of public finance in the world and held a strong trade position. This illustrated text assesses the military aspects of this shift, concentrating on the multi-faceted nature of the British military effort.; Topics covered include: the rise of Britain; an analysis of military infrastructure; warfare in the British Isles; conventional warfare in Europe; trans- oceanic warfare with European powers; the challenge of America; and the challenge of Revolutionary and Napoleonic France.
Author : John Brewer
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 341 pages
File Size : 31,80 MB
Release : 2002-09-11
Category : History
ISBN : 1134998511
First published in 1989. `The book is a distinguished work - of importance to students of governmental development generally. It is written in a fluent, non-technical manner that should reach a wide audience.' American Historical Review.
Author : Martin Kitchen
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 205 pages
File Size : 46,16 MB
Release : 1996-08-14
Category : History
ISBN : 1349248304
From its modest to its recent disappearance, the British Empire was an extraordinary and paradoxical entity. North America, Africa, South and Southeast Asia and Australasia and innumerable small islands and territories have been fundamentally shaped - economically, socially and politically - by a nation whose imperial drive came from a bewildering mixture of rapacity and moral zeal, of high-mindedness and viciousness, of strategic cunning and feckless neglect. Martin Kitchen has written a fascinating, crisp, informative account of the rise and fall of the British Empire, concentrating on the 19th and 20th centuries but giving the background of the 'First British Empire', which was lost with the creating of the United States of America. His book is of particular value in relating the importance of the Empire to Britain's success as the only genuinely world power in the Victorian era and to Britain's ability to win the two great wars of the 20th century.
Author : Peter Clarke
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Page : 321 pages
File Size : 44,30 MB
Release : 2010-09-01
Category : History
ISBN : 1596917423
A sweeping, brilliantly vivid history of the sudden end of the British empire and the moment when America became a world superpower. "I have not become the King's First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire." Winston Churchill's famous statement in November 1942, just as the tide of the Second World War was beginning to turn, pugnaciously affirmed his loyalty to the world-wide institution that he had served for most of his life. Britain fought and sacrificed on a worldwide scale to defeat Hitler and his allies-and won. Yet less than five years after Churchill's defiant speech, the British Empire effectively ended with Indian Independence in August 1947 and the end of the British Mandate in Palestine in May 1948. As the sun set on Britain's Empire, the age of America as world superpower dawned. How did this rapid change of fortune come about? Peter Clarke's book is the first to analyze the abrupt transition from Rule Britannia to Pax Americana. His swiftly paced narrative makes superb use of letters and diaries to provide vivid portraits of the figures around whom history pivoted: Churchill, Gandhi, Roosevelt, Stalin, Truman, and a host of lesser-known figures though whom Clarke brilliantly shows the human dimension of epochal events. The Last Thousand Days of the British Empire is a captivating work of popular history that shows how the events that followed the war reshaped the world as profoundly as the conflict itself.
