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The British Empire began to take shape during the early 17th century, with the English settlement of North America and the smaller islands of the Caribbean, and the establishment of joint-stock companies, most notably the East India Company, to administer colonies and overseas trade.
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."
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.
Gildas, a fifth-century Romano-British monk, was the first major historian of Wales and England.His De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae (in Latin, "On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain") records the downfall of the Britons at the hands of Saxon invaders, emphasizing God's anger and providential punishment of an entire nation, in an echo of Old Testament themes.
There was relatively free trade within the Empire, though the Imperial Preference was not as comprehensive as some preference systems such as the German Zollverein. 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 ...
Benjamin Disraeli, the Conservative leader for much of the mid-19th century, built up the British Empire and played a major role in European diplomacy. [139] Disraeli's second term as prime minister (1874–1880) was dominated by the Eastern Question —the slow decay of the Ottoman Empire and the desire of other European powers, such as Russia ...
The Development of the British Empire (1922), 465pp 30 online edition; Schreuder, Deryck, and Stuart Ward, eds. Australia's Empire (Oxford History of the British Empire Companion Series) (2010) Simms, Brendan. Three Victories and a Defeat: The Rise and Fall of the First British Empire (2008), 800pp excerpt and text search