Book Description

"In this volume, an international group of scholars from Britain, Ireland, and North America take up many of the questions surrounding the history of European expansion. What were the motives of the English, how did these change, and what insight is given on developments in English society? How did the ventures of the English compare with those of other European nations? What were the shifts in fundamental knowledge of the world, and the new concepts of civilization spread by the invention of printing, which lay behind the movements of ships, armies, and settlers? What were the roles and reactions of those who felt the weight of English expansionism, the natives of Ireland and America? Over a period of forty years, D.B. Quinn, formerly Andrew Geddes and John Rankin Professor of Modern History at the University of Liverpool, has pioneered research into these far-reaching questions in a range of books, articles, and lectures, which together have made a special contribution to the study of European expansion and the rise of the modern world. This volume is published in tribute to Professor Quinn. It provides in one source a survey of the historical research and advances in knowledge concerning the English westward enterprise, and the earliest history of America, which have been made during the last half-century"--Jacket, p. [2].