British Empire History

Between 1485 and 1688, England became a Protestant country under Henry VIII. His daughter, Elizabeth I, battled for succession and supremacy at home, and the discovery of 'the round world' enabled a vast continent across the Atlantic to be explored. While this new era was spawning the beginnings of modern America, England was engaged in a bloody civil war and sustained a Republican experiment under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell.

Award-winning historian Simon Schama completes his monumental three-volume history of Britain, which accompanies the acclaimed television epic. In The Fate of Empire, Schama illuminates the period of British history from 1770-2000 through a variety of historical themes, including the advance of technology and industry, women's increasing role in society and the burgeoning British Empire.

This book is an example of Alternative History. That, in essence, is asking what the future could be like. It suggests the US could have become a Dominion of America. Call this standard history with a twist, or even mythology in part. It is certainly historical material, told in fictional fashion.

When uprisings against colonial rule broke out across the world after 1945, Britain responded with overwhelming and brutal force. Although this period has conventionally been dubbed "postwar," it was punctuated by a succession of hard-fought, long-running conflicts that were geographically diffuse, morally ambiguous, and impervious to neat endings or declarations of victory. Age of Emergency traces facts and feelings about violence as torture, summary executions, collective punishments, and other ruthless methods were employed in "states of emergency."

Simon Schama's sweeping history of Britain breathes life into our past centuries, vividly depicting exactly what life was like for our ancestors and how their experiences have shaped modern British culture and identity. An informative and entertaining mixture of anecdote and analysis, Schama's work offers a real insight into what it is to be British.

The Third British Empire. Sir Alfred Eckhard Zimmern (1879–1957) was an English classical scholar, historian, and political scientist writing on international relations. His book, The Third British Empire, was among the first to apply the expression "British Commonwealth" to the British Empire. He is also credited with the phrase "welfare state", which was made popular a few years later by William Temple.

Economists have called the South Sea bubble "one of the most famous and dramatic episodes in the history of speculation". The company's spectacular fall impacted not only its investors, but public confidence in corporations, investments, and even banking worldwide. How did the directors of one of the most successful joint-stock companies at the time, sought after in social circles as financiers and masterminds, come to be called before Parliament to testify?

The British Empire of Magic has fallen and the treacherous Emperor Jean has seized control, claiming it as a state of the newly formed United Empires of Magic while entering into an unstable alliance with the human Queen of England. Held captive on the White Islands, Queen Ellaryne attempts to compromise with Emperor Jean, but her son Jacob openly opposes this action, causing a painful rift to appear between them and engulfing his relationship with Elliot. Meanwhile, Royal Lady Camila Kerr leads a rebellion called the Loyalists in an attempt to retake control of the Empire.

The fourth and last volume in Churchill's famous account spans 1815 to 1901. It closes when the British Empire is at its peak, with a staggering one-fifth of the human race presided over by the longest reigning monarch in British history: Queen Victoria.

Sabrina Mahfouz once sat in a Whitehall interview room and was interrogated about everything from her political leanings to her private life. It was ostensibly a job interview, but implicit in their demands was the unspoken question: as a woman of Middle Eastern heritage, could she really be trusted? Years later, Sabrina found herself confronting the meaning behind this interrogation, and how it was specifically informed by the British Empire's historical dominance in the Middle East.

Jules Drinkwater’s Empire’s Last Brew takes you on a wild journey through the dramatic and tumultuous eras where tea and coffee were far more than mere drinks—they were symbols of power, rebellion, and cultural identity. Each chapter reveals the intense confrontations and hidden intrigues that defined a pivotal period, from the American colonies’ uprising against British tyranny to the revolutionary fervor that percolated in European societies.

The height of Mount Everest was first measured in 1850, but the closest any Westerner got to Everest during the next 71 years, until 1921, was 40 miles. The Hunt for Mount Everest tells the story of the 71-year quest to find the world's highest mountain. It's a tale of high drama, of larger-than-life characters - George Everest, Francis Younghusband, George Mallory, Lord Curzon, Edward Whymper - and a few quiet heroes: Alexander Kellas, the 13th Dalai Lama, Charles Bell.

The issue of race in the British Empire is as complex as the history of the British Empire itself. The origins of the British Empire lie in the settlement of North America and the Caribbean, both of which led to complex intersections of imperialism, commerce, and race. The Windrush Scandal: The History of the Modern Controversy and Race Relations in the British Empire examines how racism in the United Kingdom affected the empire at home and abroad.

For five horrific weeks after Christmas in 1831, Jamaica was convulsed by an uprising of its enslaved people. What started as a peaceful labor strike quickly turned into a full-blown revolt, leaving hundreds of plantation houses in smoking ruins. By the time British troops had put down the rebels, more than a thousand Jamaicans lay dead from summary executions and extrajudicial murder. While the rebels lost their military gamble, their sacrifice accelerated the larger struggle for freedom in the British Atlantic.

The Birth of the Republic of Ireland: The History of Ireland’s Split from the British Empire in the Early 20th Century analyzes the tumultuous events that marked Irish history during the early 20th century. You will learn about Ireland in the early 20th century like never before.

2.6 billion people are inhabitants of former British colonies. The empire's influence upon the quarter of the planet it occupied, and its gravitational influence upon the world outside it, has been profound: from the spread of Christianity by missionaries to the shaping international law. Even today, 1 in 3 people drive on the left hand side of the road, an artifact of the British empire. Yet Britain's idea of its imperial history and the world's experience of it are two very different things. Empireworld explores the ways in which British Empire has come to shape the modern world.

Before the East India Company and before the British Empire, England was a pariah state. Seeking better fortunes, 16th and 17th century merchants, pilgrims and outcasts ventured to the kingdom of the mighty Mughals, attempting to sell coarse woollen broadcloth along the silk roads; playing courtiers in the Mughal palaces in pursuit of love; or simply touring the sub-continent in search of an elephant to ride.

A new understanding of the post-World War II era, showing what occurred when the British Empire wouldn't step aside for the rising American superpower - with global insights for today.

The modern history of Africa was, until very recently, written on behalf of the indigenous races by the white man, who had forcefully entered the continent during a particularly hubristic and dynamic phase of European history. In 1884, Prince Otto von Bismark, the German chancellor, brought the plenipotentiaries of all major powers of Europe together to deal with Africa's colonization in such a manner as to avoid provocation of war. This event - known as the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885 - galvanized a phenomenon that came to be known as the Scramble for Africa.

With the exception of the terrible retreat from Afghanistan, none of England's many little wars have been so fatal in proportion to the number of those engaged as our first expedition to Burma. The Burman policy of carrying off every boat on the river, laying waste the whole country, and driving away the inhabitants and the herds, maintained our army as prisoners in Rangoon through the first wet season; and caused the loss of half the white officers and men first sent there.