Oxford History of the British Empire: Volume II: The Eighteenth Century

Volume II of The Oxford History of the British Empire examines the history of British worldwide expansion from the Glorious Revolution of 1689 to the end of the Napoleonic Wars, a crucial phase in the creation of the modern British Empire. This is the age of General Wolfe, Clive of India, and Captain Cook. An international team of experts deploy the latest scholarly research to trace and analyze development and expansion over more than a century. They showhow trade, warfare, and migration created an Empire, at first overwhelmingly in the Americas but later increasingly in Asia. Although the Empire was ruptured by the American Revolution, it survived and grew into the British Empire that was to dominate the world during the nineteenth and early twentiethcenturies. Series BlurbThe Oxford History of the British Empire is a major new assessment of the Empire in the light of recent scholarship and the progressive opening of historical records. From the founding of colonies in North America and the West Indies in the seventeenth century to the reversion of Hong Kong to China at the end of the twentieth, British imperialism was a catalyst for far-reaching change. The Oxford History of the British Empire as a comprehensive study allows us to understandthe end of Empire in relation to its beginnings, the meaning of British imperialism for the ruled as well as the rulers, and the significance of the British Empire as a theme in world history.

Oxford University Press has recently published a wide variety of historical titles in paperback. Pride of place must go to the five volume Oxford History of the British Empire written under the general editorship of Professor William Roger Lewis and published in hardback in 1998. The five volumes, describe the history and effect of the Empire on world history. The scholars who contributed and the volumes' individual editors all deserve high praise for thie massive undertaking., a set of authors with impeccable credentials ... provide ... systematic overviews., Review from previous edition readers can be assured of solid summaries of the state-of-play on the various specialist topics covered. This is a fine volume that gives British imperial historians plenty to consider.

P. J. Marshall is Emeritus Professor of Imperial History at the University of London.