Volume I: The Origins of Empire: British Overseas Enterprise to the Close of the Seventeenth Century

by Nicholas Canny (Editor), Wm Roger Louis (Editor)

Overview

Volume I of the Oxford History of the British Empire explores the origins of empire. It shows how and why England, and later Britain, became involved with transoceanic navigation, trade, and settlement during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The chapters, by leading historians, both illustrate the interconnections between developments in Europe and overseas and offer specialist studies on every part of the world that was substantially affected by British colonial activity. As late as 1630 involvement with regions beyond the traditional confines of Europe was still tentative; by 1690 it had become a firm commitment. series blurb The 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. It deals with the interaction of British and non-western societies from the Elizabethan era to the late twentieth century, aiming to provide a balanced treatment of the ruled as well as the rulers, and to take into account the significance of the Empire for the peoples of the British Isles. It explores economic and social trends as well as political.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780191647345
Publisher:	OUP Oxford
Publication date:	05/28/1998
Series:	The Oxford History of the British Empire , #1
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	7 MB

About the Author

Nicholas Canny is Professor of History at University College, Galway.

Table of Contents

	List of Maps	xv
	List of Figures	xvi
	List of Tables	xvi
	List of Contributors	xvii
	Abbreviations and Location of Manuscript Sources	xx
1.	The Origins of Empire: An Introduction	1
2.	The Struggle for Legitimacy and the Image of Empire in the Atlantic to c.1700	34
3.	War, Politics, and Colonization, 1558-1625	55
4.	Guns and Sails in the First Phase of English Colonization, 1500-1650	79
5.	Literature and Empire	99
6.	'Civilizinge of those rude partes': Colonization within Britain and Ireland, 1580s-1640s	124
7.	England's New World and the Old, 1480s-1630s	148
8.	Tobacco Colonies: The Shaping of English Society in the Seventeenth-Century Chesapeake	170
9.	New England in the Seventeenth Century	193
10.	The 'Hub of Empire': the Caribbean and Britain in the Seventeenth Century	218
11.	The English in Western Africa to 1700	241
12.	The English in Asia to 1700	264
13.	The English Government, War, Trade, and Settlement, 1625-1688	286
14.	New Opportunities for British Settlement: Ireland, 1650-1700	309
15.	Native Americans and Europeans in English America, 1500-1700	328
16.	The Middle Colonies: New Opportunities for Settlement, 1660-1700	351
17.	'Shaftesbury's Darling': British Settlement in the Carolinas at the Close of the Seventeenth Century	375
18.	Overseas Expansion and Trade in the Seventeenth Century	398
19.	The Emerging Empire: The Continental Perspective, 1650-1713	423
20.	The Glorious Revolution and America	445
21.	Navy, State, Trade, and Empire	467
	Chronology	482
	Index	507

Editorial Reviews

"An extremely useful volume, and it will be the principal reference work for many years to come."—Journal of American History

"It must be said immediately that its first two volumes get The Oxford History of the British Empire off to a strong start. Both books consist of essays that break new ground and do so with a confidence based on extensive research and with refreshing lucidity and frankness....These two books are likely to shock some of their readers. For example, the sentimentalized and idealized version of American history, which luxuriates in popular works and is more subtly present in much academic history, finds no favor with the contributors to these volumes."—Conor Cruise O'Brien in The New York Review of Books

"Fresh as well as important, interesting as well as judicious, thoughtful as well as scholarly....Throughout, this is an important and thought-provoking volume."—Albion

"The first two volumes of this five-volume history of the British Empire establish a very high standard of scholarship....Recommended for all libraries."—Library Journal

"[Oxford History of the British Empire] provide[s] a huge, richly endowed quarry within which readers can delve with great profit and enjoyment."—The Independent

"Magisterial design and craftmanship in the detail"—Daily Telegraph (London)

"Magnificent...Taken together, these books constitute an extraordinary feat of organization and scholarship, and they provide the authoritative history of the British Empire for our generation, and the essential starting point of the re-writing of that history which will take place in the next generation. Opinions differ about the British Empire; there can be no disagreement about this superb history of it."—David Cannadine in The Times Literary Supplement

"The Oxford History of the British Empire will take many years to be digested. In the meantime, its five volumes will gather little dust on library shelves. Those fortunate enough to have these books in their own library will possess a valuable publication that recommends new approaches and raises new questions about one of the greatest cultural and technological transfers that has taken place in the world during the past half millennium."—The Historian

From the Publisher

The first two volumes of this five-volume history of the British Empire establish a very high standard of scholarship. Over three dozen scholars examine both major and minor aspects of the modern imperial experience. The chronological focus develops from the 16th century, when Ireland was the starting point of the empire, to the end of the 18th, when the 13 American Colonies were lost. The essays form an interlocking analysis of the origins of empire from an intellectual, military, economic, and technological perspective. There is some overlap; for example, several essays discuss the role of naval power, but each author approaches the topic with a different focus, such as technology in N.A.M. Rogers's essay and politics in John Appleby's. The various chapters, therefore, reinforce the overall picture instead of being redundant. Separate chapters in the first volume analyze the origins and implementation of the British imperial expansion, or contraction, in each region and then continue in the second volume, as do discussions of new subjects, such as the colonization of Australia. The interrelationship between the mother country and the Colonies also receives continued emphasis. Jonathan Israel's chapter, in Volume 1, on the continental perspective of British empire building helps place events in an even broader context. There is a short bibliography after each chapter. Three following volumes will see the empire through to its 20th-century decline. Recommended for all libraries.--Frederic Krome, Jacob Rader Marcus Ctr. of the American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati

Library Journal