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  3. The Ideological Origins of the British Empire
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    • Publisher:
      Cambridge University Press
      Publication date:
      06 July 2010
      04 September 2000
      ISBN:
      9780511755965
      9780521590815
      9780521789783
      DOI:
      https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511755965
      Dimensions:
      (228 x 152 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.55kg, 258 Pages
      Dimensions:
      (229 x 152 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.41kg, 258 Pages
      • Subjects:
      History of Ideas, History, History of Ideas and Intellectual History
      Series:
      Ideas in Context (59)
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    • Selected: Digital
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    Subjects:
    History of Ideas, History, History of Ideas and Intellectual History
    Series:
    Ideas in Context (59)
    Information

    Book description

    The Ideological Origins of the British Empire presents a comprehensive history of British conceptions of empire for more than half a century. David Armitage traces the emergence of British imperial identity from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-eighteenth centuries, using a full range of manuscript and printed sources. By linking the histories of England, Scotland and Ireland with the history of the British Empire, he demonstrates the importance of ideology as an essential linking between the processes of state-formation and empire-building. This book sheds light on major British political thinkers, from Sir Thomas Smith to David Hume, by providing fascinating accounts of the 'British problem' in the early modern period, of the relationship between Protestantism and empire, of theories of property, liberty and political economy in imperial perspective, and of the imperial contribution to the emergence of British 'identities' in the Atlantic world.

    Awards

    Winner of the History Today Book of the Year prize for 2000

    Reviews

    ‘The Ideological Origins of the British Empire is an important and necessary work.’

    Andrew Hadfield Source: The Times Literary Supplement

    ‘ … lucid in style and solid in research.’

    Source: The Calcutta Telegraph (Editor’s Choice)

    ‘… Armitage has produced an unexpected, original and persuasive account of the vexed - and charged - ideological relationship of empire, liberty and Britishness during the early modern period.’

    Source: History of Political Thought

    ' … a valuable addition to studies on the British Empire. The author furnishes a fascinating analysis of political thought and ideological history, showing the difficulties encountered in the way of legitimating colonialism and political domination.'

    Source: Contemporary South Asia

    ' … a valuable addition to studies on the British Empire. The author furnishes a fascinating analysis of political thought and ideological history, showing the difficulties encountered in the way of legitimating colonialism and political domination.'

    Source: Contemporary South Asia

    ‘… impressively learned and forcefully argued …’.

    Source: Yearbook of English Studies

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    Contents

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