Making the British Empire, 1660-1800

This book is based on the latest research, and involves stimulating new ideas from some of the most important scholars working in the field of imperial history. It ranges across politics, religion, economy, law and geography in order to offer challenging perspectives on the nature and origins of the first British empire.
This collection offers a timely reappraisal of the origins and nature of the first British empire, in response to the ‘cultural turn’ in historical scholarship and the ‘new imperial history’. It addresses topics that have been neglected in recent literature, providing a series of political and institutional perspective; at the same time it recognises the importance of developments across the empire, not least in terms of how they affected imperial ‘policy’ and its implementation. It analyses a range of contemporary debates and ideas – political and intellectual as well as religious and administrative – relating to political economy, legal geography and sovereignty, as well as the messy realities of the imperial project, including the costs and losses of empire, collectively and individually.