Introduction: Britain and the Empire in the Nineteenth Century

Abstract This chapter highlights four themes running through the volume, and uses them to provide a general context for the chapters which follow. They embrace both the ‘long’ and ‘short’ centuries, and are divided by theme and territory. The nineteenth century British Empire was made up of three distinct but overlapping components. An Empire of white settlement, truncated by losses in America, was already growing again by 1800; an Empire in India had expanded enormously since 1756; and an Empire of conquests or wartime acquisitions, the dependent empire was continually added to between 1780 and 1914. Discussion on the Empire and expansion, expansion and the limits of Empire, Empire and international relations, supervision of Empire, imperial and colonial cultures, and nineteenth century assessments is provided.