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The British Empire became the world's largest economy by nominal GDP in 1870 [6] [10] and was responsible for approximately a quarter of global trade at that time, [10] with trade accounting for about one third of its GDP. [11]
The precise extent of either empire at its greatest territorial expansion is a matter of debate among scholars. Several empires in human history have been contenders for the largest of all time, depending on definition and mode of measurement. Possible ways of measuring size include area, population, economy, and power.
Map of the world showing the extent of the British Empire in 1886. Between 1815 and 1914, a period referred to as Britain's "imperial century" by some historians, [113] around 10 million sq mi (26 million km 2) of territory and roughly 400 million people were added to the British Empire. [114]
The modern or "second" British Empire was based upon the English Empire which first took shape in the early 18th century, with the English settlement of the Thirteen Colonies which in 1776 became the United States, as well as Canada's Maritime provinces, and the control of sugar plantation islands of the Caribbean, notably Trinidad and Tobago ...
London poured money into railway building—a veritable bubble, but one with permanent value. Thomas Brassey brought British railway engineering to the world, with construction crews that in the 1840s employed 75,000 men across Europe. Every nation copied the British model. Brassey expanded throughout the British Empire and Latin America.
The British Empire embraced free trade and used its power as the financial center of the world to promote the same. The Guyanese historian Walter Rodney describes mercantilism as the period of the worldwide development of European commerce, which began in the 15th century with the voyages of Portuguese and Spanish explorers to Africa, Asia, and ...
The major multi-volume multi-author coverage of the history of the British Empire is the Oxford History of the British Empire (1998–2001), five-volume set, plus a companion series. [277] Douglas Peers says the series demonstrates that, "As a field of historical inquiry, imperial history is clearly experiencing a renaissance." [278]
The breakdown of laissez-faire as practised by the British Empire was partly led by British companies eager for state support of their positions abroad, in particular British oil companies. [ 39 ] In Italy, philosopher Benedetto Croce created the term "liberism" (derived from the Italian term liberismo ), a term for the economic doctrine of ...