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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.
Under the terms of the concluding Treaty of Versailles signed in 1919, the empire reached its greatest extent with the addition of 1.8 million sq mi (4.7 million km 2) and 13 million new subjects. [155] The colonies of Germany and the Ottoman Empire were distributed to the Allied powers as League of Nations mandates.
The British Empire refers to the possessions, dominions, and dependencies under the control of the Crown.In addition to the areas formally under the sovereignty of the British monarch, various "foreign" territories were controlled as protectorates; territories transferred to British administration under the authority of the League of Nations or the United Nations; and miscellaneous other ...
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]
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 built up a very large worldwide British Empire, which peaked in size in 1922. The cumulative costs of fighting two world wars, however, placed a heavy burden upon the UK economy, and after 1945 the British Empire gradually began to disintegrate, with many territories demanding independence.
The second British Empire, founded after the loss of the Thirteen Colonies in the American Revolutionary War of the 1770s, was dramatically expanded in India, other parts of Asia, and Africa. There was little friction with other colonial powers until the 1890s. British foreign policy avoided entangling alliances. [26]