British Empire

The British Empire' was the worldwide domain controlled by Great Britain from its origins about 1600 until its collapse around 1960.

The term "British Empire" was used by historians as early as 1708: (John Oldmixon, The British Empire in America, Containing the History of the Discovery, Settlement, Progress and Present State of All the British Colonies, on the Continent and Islands of America (London, 1708)) before that the term was "English Empire," as in Nathaniel Crouch, The English Empire in America: Or a Prospect of His Majesties Dominions in the West-Indies (London, 1685). [Armitage pp 174-5]

Bibliography

Overviews

• Bryant, Arthur. The History of Britain and the British Peoples, 3 vols. (London, 1984–90).
• 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 (Macmillan, 1993).
• James, Lawrence. The Rise and Fall of the British Empire (St. Martin's Griffin, 1997).
• Judd, Denis. Empire: The British Imperial Experience, From 1765 to the Present (London, 1996).
• 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. (Oxford U.P., 1998–99).
  • vol 1
  • vol 2
  • 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
• Marshall, P. J. (ed.), The Cambridge Illustrated History of the British Empire (Cambridge, 1996).
• Olson, James S. and Robert S. Shadle; Historical Dictionary of the British Empire 1996 online edition
• Rose, J. Holland, A. P. Newton and E. A. Benians (gen. eds.), The Cambridge History of the British Empire, 9 vols. (Cambridge, 1929–61).
• Smith, Simon C. British Imperialism 1750-1970 Cambridge University Press, 1998. brief

Popular

• Rice, Earle. John Cabot (Profiles in American History Series) Mitchell Lane Publishers, 2006
• Ritchie, Harry; The Last Pink Bits: Travels Through the Remnants of the British Empire Sceptre Press, 1997
• Winchester, Simon; Outposts: Journeys to the Surviving Relics of the British Empire Harper Perennial, 2004

Specialized scholarly studies

• James Truslow Adams, "'On the Term 'British Empire,'" American Historical Review, 22 (1927), 485–9; in JSTOR
• Andrews, Kenneth R. Trade, Plunder and Settlement: Maritime Enterprise and the Genesis of the British Empire, 1480–1630 (Cambridge, 1984).
• Armitage, David. The Ideological Origins of the British Empire Cambridge University Press, 2000. online edition
• Armitage, David, 'Greater Britain: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis?' American Historical Review, 104 (1999), 427–45.
• Armitage, David (ed.), Theories of Empire, 1450–1800 (Aldershot, 1998).
• Charles A. Barone, Marxist Thought on Imperialism: Survey and Critique (London: Macmillan, 1985)
• Bernard Bailyn and Philip D. Morgan (eds.), Strangers within the Realm: Cultural Margins of the First British Empire (Chapel Hill, 1991)
• Barker, Sir Ernest, The Ideas and Ideals of the British Empire (Cambridge, 1941).
• W. Baumgart, Imperialism: The Idea and Reality of British and French Colonial Expansion, 1880-1914 (Oxford University Press, 1982)
• C. A. Bayly, Imperial Meridian: The British Empire and the World, 1780-1831 (Longman, 1989).
• Bennett, George (ed.), The Concept of Empire: Burke to Attlee, 1774–1947 (London, 1953).
• J. M. Blaut, The Colonizers' Model of the World, London 1993
• Elleke Boehmer; ed. Empire Writing: An Anthology of Colonial Literature, 1870-1918 Oxford University Press, 1998
• Patrick Brantlinger, Rule of Darkness: British Literature and Imperialism, 1830-1914 (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1988).
• Chris Brooks and Peter Faulkner (eds.), The White Man's Burdens: An Anthology of British Poetry of the Empire (Exeter UP, 1996).
• Constantine, Stephen. "British Emigration to the Empire-commonwealth since 1880: from Overseas Settlement to Diaspora?" Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History [Great Britain] 2003 31(2): 16-35. ISSN 0308-6534
• Philip Darby, The Three Faces of Imperialism: British and American Approaches to Asia and Africa, 1870-1970 (Yale University Press, 1987
• DePalma, Anthony. Here: A Biography of the New American Continent (PublicAffairs, 2001)
• Michael W. Doyle, Empires (Cornell UP, 1986).
• Elliott, J.H., Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America 1492-1830 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006).
• Firstbrook, P.L. The Voyage of the Matthew: John Cabot and the Discovery of America Bay Books, 1997
• Gould, Eliga H., The Persistence of Empire: British Political Culture in the Age of the American Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000).
• Harlow, V. T., The Founding of the Second British Empire, 1763–1793, 2 vols. (London, 1952–64).
• Heinlein, Frank. British Government Policy and Decolonisation, 1945-1963: Scrutinising the Officiial Mind Routledge, 2002.
• Hyam, Ronald. Empire and Sexuality: The British Experience (Manchester UP, 1990).
• Edward Ingram. The British Empire as a World Power (2001)
• Lawrence James, The Rise and Fall of the British Empire (Abacus, 1994).
• Robert Johnson. British Imperialism Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. historiography
• Kennedy, Paul, The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery (London, 1976).
• Kenny, Kevin, ed. Ireland and the British Empire Oxford U. Press 2004.
• Knorr, Klaus E., British Colonial Theories 1570–1850 Toronto, 1944).
• Levine, Philippa, ed. Gender and Empire Oxford U. Press, 2004.
• 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 Oxford University Press, 1978 online edition
• McDevitt, Patrick F. May the Best Man Win: Sport, Masculinity, and Nationalism in Great Britain and the Empire, 1880-1935 Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
• Mehta, Uday Singh, Liberalism and Empire: A Study in Nineteenth-Century British Liberal Thought (Chicago, 1999).
• Morgan, Philip D. and Hawkins, Sean, ed. Black Experience and the Empire Oxford U. Press, 2004.
• Jan Morris, The Spectacle of Empire: Style, Effect and Pax Britannica (Faber, 1982).
• Pocock, J. G. A., 'The Limits and Divisions of British History: In Search of the Unknown Subject', American Historical Review, 87 (1982), 311–36.
• Porter, Andrew. Religion Versus Empire?: British Protestant Missionaries and Overseas Expansion, 1700-1914 Manchester U. Press 2004
• Potter, Simon J. News and the British World: The Emergence of an Imperial Press System. Clarendon, 2003
• Rüger, Jan. "Nation, Empire and Navy: Identity Politics in the United Kingdom 1887-1914" Past & Present 2004 (185): 159-187. ISSN 0031-2746
• Spurr, David. The Rhetoric of Empire: Colonial Discourse in Journalism, Travel Writing and Imperial Administration (Duke UP, 1993).
• Joanna Trollope, Britannia's Daughters: Women of the British Empire (Hutchinson, 1983).
• Wilson, Ian. John Cabot and the Matthew. Breakwater Books, 1996.
• Wilson, Kathleen, ed. A New Imperial History: Culture, Identity and Modernity in Britain and the Empire, 1660-1840 Cambridge U. Press 2004.