Crisis of Empire

Britain and America in the Eighteenth Century

By Jeremy Black

2008

First Published

2.91

Average Rating

224

Number of Pages

6H50M

Audio Length

Britain and the USA have helped define much of world history in recent centuries, and the relationship between the two is crucial to this history. This book focuses on a key period in their relationship that moulded the character of the British Empire, the USA and the way the two have interacted since. The rise and crises of empires will always fascinate the observer because in their fate we see much of human history. Certainly the struggle for empire in the 18th Century was key to the fate of North America. British victory followed by the American Revolution helped to define the modern world. The European nations of Britain, France and Spain were eager for predominance and the trappings of trade, land and prestige. Within North America, there were the local agents of these powers and their subjects, who in turn held their own interests and views; whilst the Native Americans were more than simply the passive victims of European expansion. This fascinating and complex story is told by Black with narrative drive and scholarly acumen.

Avg Rating

2.91

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Author

Jeremy Black

Author · 90 books

Professor Jeremy Black MBE is an English historian and a Professor of History at the University of Exeter. He is a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of America and the West at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He is the author of over 100 books, principally but not exclusively on 18th-century British politics and international relations, and has been described as "the most prolific historical scholar of our age". Black graduated from Queens' College, Cambridge with a starred first, and then undertook postgraduate work at St John's and Merton Colleges, Oxford. He taught at Durham University for 16 years from 1980 to 1996, firstly as a lecturer and then as a Professor. In 1996 he moved to Exeter University where he took up the post of Professor of History. He has lectured extensively in Australasia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy and the U.S.. He was editor of Archives, the journal of the British Records Association, from 1989 to 2005. He has served on the Council of the British Records Association (1989–2005); the Council of the Royal Historical Society (1993–1996 and 1997–2000); and the Council of the List and Index Society (from 1997). He has sat on the editorial boards of History Today, International History Review, Journal of Military History, Media History and the Journal of the Royal United Services Institute (now the RUSI Journal). He is an advisory fellow of the Barsanti Military History Center at the University of North Texas. He was awarded an MBE in 2000 for services to stamp design, as advisor to the Royal Mail from 1997.