This important series examines a diverse range of imperial histories from the early modern period to the twentieth century. Drawing on works of political, social, economic and cultural history, the history of science and political theory, the series encourages methodological pluralism and does not impose any particular conception of historical scholarship. While focused on particular aspects of empire, works published also seek to address wider questions on the study of imperial history.
By Ben Maddison
December 22, 2016
Between 1750 and 1920 over 15,000 people visited Antarctica. Despite such a large number the historiography has ignored all but a few celebrated explorers. Maddison presents a study of Antarctic exploration, telling the story of these forgotten facilitators, he argues that Antarctic exploration can...
By J Lee Thompson
January 20, 2016
When Alfred Milner was knighted, he took as his motto Communis Patria, 'patriotism for our common country'. This is the study of Milner, which takes his politics, or 'constructive' imperialism as its primary theme. It also discovers a group of young female supporters of his vision....
By Timothy Paul Grady
January 20, 2016
Often played down in favour of the larger competition for empire between England and France, the influence of the Spanish in English Carolina and the English in Spanish Florida created a rivalry that shaped the early history of colonial south-east America. This study is the first to tell the full ...
Edited
By Frédéric Regard
January 20, 2016
Focusing on nineteenth-century attempts to locate the northwest passage, the essays in this volume present this quest as a central element of British culture....
By David Lowe
January 20, 2016
Part biography, part transnational history, this study details the life and career of Percy Spender, one of Australia's most prominent twentieth-century political figures....
By Nicole Starbuck
January 20, 2016
This is the first in-depth study of the sojourn in Sydney made by Nicolas Baudin’s scientific expedition to Australia in 1802. Starbuck focuses on the reconstruction of the voyage during the expedition’s stay in colonial Sydney and how this sheds new light on our understanding of French society, ...
By Allison Drew
January 20, 2016
Sidney Bunting's life offers a unique perspective on the British Empire, illustrating the complex social networks and values that were carried across the world in the name of empire. Drawing on archival material, including the Bunting family papers and records of Bunting's Oxford years, this work ...
By Casper Andersen
January 20, 2016
Using a wide range of primary sources that include correspondence, diaries, technical reports, institutional minutes and periodicals, Andersen reconstructs the networks and activities of Britain’s engineers while focusing on London as a centre of imperial expansion....
Edited
By Frédéric Regard
January 20, 2016
Features a collection of essays that focus on British travel narratives from the seventeenth through to the nineteenth centuries. This work investigates how the early explorers' sense of self was destabilised by encounters with the Other....
By Bruce Buchan
January 20, 2016
A book about how European colonists in Australia represented the Indigenous peoples they found there, and the tasks of governing them within the terms of Western political thought. It emphasises how the framework of ideas drawn from the traditions of Western political thought was employed in the ...
By Kate Marsh
January 20, 2016
Examines metropolitan French-language representations of India from the period between the recall of Dupleix to France to the Second Treaty of Paris. This book explores what a European power, territorially peripheral in India, thought of both India and the administrative rule there of its rival, ...
By Charles Ivar McGrath
January 20, 2016
Historians often view early modern Ireland as a testing ground for subsequent British colonial adventures further afield. McGrath argues against this passive view, suggesting that Ireland played an enthusiastic role in the establishment and expansion of the first British Empire. He focuses on two ...