Sarah Stockwell is senior lecturer in Imperial and Commonwealth History at King’s College London. Her previous publications include The Business of Decolonization: British Business Strategies in the Gold Coast (2000) and Imperial Policy and Colonial Practice 1925-1945 (1996).

"The British Empire: Themes and Perspectives is an impressive collection of twelve chapters by junior and senior scholars which presents overviews of various areas of scholarship on the British Empire . . . nevertheless, the vast scope of past and present historiography covered in The British Empire: Themes and Perspectives makes it an invaluable companion for students and scholars of the British Empire." (Canadian Journal of History, 1 October 2010) "By putting the 'old' political, economic, intellectual history in conversation with newer concerns about culture, gender, race, sexuality, identity-formation, and migration, this approach might be a very important way of reinvigorating the study of empire." (Victorian Studies, Autumn 2009)"It will provide a most stimulating companion for students and researchers alike." (English Historical Review, June 2009)"This book provides a wide-ranging, judicious, and insightful survey of some of the most important contemporary issues in British imperial and colonial historiography. Editor Stockwell (King's College London) has assembled 12 excellent essays on a representative sample of themes. Stockwell has cut through the polemics that have sometimes characterized scholarly debate in imperial history, demonstrating that the field's strengths are greater than the sum of its parts. Essential." (CHOICE, December 2008)

• Notes on Contributors viiPreface xiAbbreviations Used in Notes xviiMaps xviii1 Britain’s Empires 1John Darwin2 Foundations of Empire, 1763–83 21Eliga H. Gould3 Empire and the British State 39Andrew Thompson4 The British Empire on the Move, 1760–1914 63Kent Fedorowich5 The Economics of Empire 101A. R. Dilley6 Religion in the British Empire 131Elisabeth Elbourne7 Empire and Ideology 157Stephen Howe8 Colonial Knowledge 177Tony Ballantyne9 Culture and Identity in Imperial Britain 199Catherine Hall10 Imperial Identities Abroad 219Stuart Ward11 Agency, Narrative, and Resistance 245Jon E. Wilson12 Ends of Empire 269Sarah StockwellConsolidated Bibliography 295Index 343