At its peak in the early 20th century, Britain's empire was the largest in the history of the world, greater even than that of ancient Rome. It embraced more than a fourth of the world's population and affected the course of Western civilization in ways almost too numerous to imagine.

Even today, with the advantages of historical perspective and hindsight, it is still nearly impossible to overstate the scope and importance of its stunning legacy. Yet only seven decades after achieving its unprecedented global reach, the British Empire had virtually disappeared, swept aside by historical forces as powerful as those that had first propelled it into being.

How and why did this happen? What were those forces that thrust the British Empire to its extraordinary position and then just as powerfully drove it into decline? And why are the lives of not only Americans but also of the citizens of nearly every nation on earth, in one way or another, the consequence of the British Empire?

In the 36 lectures of The Rise and Fall of the British Empire, award-winning Professor Patrick N. Allitt of Emory University leads you through four centuries of British power, innovation, influence, and, ultimately, diminishment-four profound centuries that literally remade the world and bequeathed the complex global legacy that continues to shape your everyday life.

Inhoud

CH1. The Sun Never Set
CH2. The Challenge to Spain in the New World
CH3. African Slavery and the West Indies
CH4. Imperial Beginnings in India
CH5. Clive and the Conquest of India
CH6. Wolfe and the Conquest of Canada
CH7. The Loss of the American Colonies
CH8. Exploring the Planet
CH9. Napoleon Challenges the Empire
CH10. The Other Side of the World
CH11. Abolition of the Slave Trade and Slavery
CH12. Early African Colonies
CH13. China and the Opium Wars
CH14. Britain-The Imperial Center
CH15. Ireland-The Tragic Relationship
CH16. India and the "Great Game"
CH17. Rebellion and Mutiny in India
CH18. How Canada Became a Nation
CH19. The Exploration and Settlement of Africa
CH20. Gold, Greed, and Geopolitics in Africa
CH21. The Empire in Literature
CH22. Economics and Theories of Empire
CH23. The British Empire Fights Imperial Germany
CH24. Versailles and Disillusionment
CH25. Ireland Divided
CH26. Cricket and the British Empire
CH27. British India between the World Wars
CH28. World War II-England Alone
CH29. World War II-The Pyrrhic Victory
CH30. Twilight of the Raj
CH31. Israel, Egypt, and the Suez Canal
CH32. The Decolonization of Africa
CH33. The White Dominions
CH34. Britain after the Empire
CH35. Colonial and Postcolonial Literature
CH36. Epitaph and Legacy