PREFACE. CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE, 1492-1815. CHAPTER 2
LONG-TERM DEVELOPMENTS, 1815-1919. CHAPTER 3 THE FIRST HALF OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, 1815-70. CHAPTER 4 MODERN IMPERIALISM, 1870-1914: GENERAL ASPECTS. CHAPTER 5 EUROPEAN IMPERIALISM IN AFRICA. CHAPTER 6 MODERN IMPERIALISM IN ASIA AND THE PACIFIC. CHAPTER 7 THE FIRST WORLD WAR AND THE COLONIES. CHAPTER 8
CONCLUSION. BIBLIOGRAPHY. SYNCHRONISTIC TABLE. INDEX.
Biography
H. L. Wesseling is Emeritus Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Leiden and was the founder and first director of its Centre for the History of European Expansion.
His previous titles include Divide and Rule: The Partition of Africa (1996) and Imperialism and Colonialism: Essays on the History of European Expansion (1997).
'Henk Wesseling has spent years leading one of the world's best historical research teams. But it is his personal touch that makes this work special. He combines all the qualities an historian needs to write a perfect book: a flawless sense of evidence, unfailing clarity of exposition, unerring judgement, free-wheeling breadth of culture, a talent for balancing narrative with analysis, and an enviable ability to cram comprehensive coverage into manageable space, without sacrifice of detail.
He also has an eye for vivid material, which can entertain as well as instruct and a subtle, endlessly enjoyable sense of humour enlivens his pages. No book on this subject unites so much material, on so many regions and empires, with greater dispassion, superior judgement, or equal command of the facts.'
Felipe Fernández-Armesto, Notre Dame, USA
