P. J. Marshall - Böcker

Volume I of the Oxford History of the British Empire explores the origins of empire. It shows how and why England, and later Britain, became involved with transoceanic navigation, trade, and settlement during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The chapters, by leading historians, both illustrate the interconnections between developments in Europe and overseas and offer specialist studies on every part of the world that was substantially affected by British colonial activity. As late as 1630 involvement with regions beyond the traditional confines of Europe was still tentative; by 1690 it had become a firm commitment. series blurb The Oxford History of the British Empire is a major new assessment of the Empire in the light of recent scholarship and the progressive opening of historical records. It deals with the interaction of British and non-western societies from the Elizabethan era to the late twentieth century, aiming to provide a balanced treatment of the ruled as well as the rulers, and to take into account the significance of the Empire for the peoples of the British Isles. It explores economic and social trends as well as political.

Volume II of the Oxford History of the British Empire examines the history of British worldwide expansion from the Glorious Revolution of 1689 to the end of the Napoleonic Wars, a crucial phase in the creation of the modern British Empire. This is the age of General Wolfe, Clive of India, and Captain Cook. The international team of experts deploy the latest scholarly research to trace and analyse development and expansion over more than a century. They show how trade, warfare, and migration created an Empire, at first overwhelmingly in the Americas but later increasingly in Asia. Although the Empire was ruptured by the American Revolution, it survived and grew into the British Empire that was to dominate the world during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. series blurb The Oxford History of the British Empire is a major new assessment of the Empire in the light of recent scholarship and the progressive opening of historical records. It deals with the interaction of British and non-western societies from the Elizabethan era to the late twentieth century, aiming to provide a balanced treatment of the ruled as well as the rulers, and to take into account the significance of the Empire for the peoples of the British Isles. It explores economic and social trends as well as political.

This key volume specifically completes the collection of Edmund Burke's Indian Writings and Speeches which is set within the series, and is both an exposition of Burke's views on India from his coverage of the Hastings trial, and his views on maintaining the rule of a universal justice. The texts for the items, which have appeared in previous editions of Burke's Works, have been reconstructed, largely by the use of manuscripts. Indeed many of the shorter speeches appear here in print for the first time. The volume includes a key speech which introduced one of the main charges in the trial of Warren Hastings on an impeachment from 1789-1794, and an important report on the conduct of the trial. It closes with the enormously lengthy and significant speech in which Burke summed up the prosecution's case over nine days. However, this volume is not only a full exposition of Burke's views on India but contains much of great interest about other aspects of his thought. In particular, Burke saw himself in these years as being engaged in a battle against the lawless disruption of society, both in Europe and in Asia, in order to maintain the rule of a universal justice, a main theme of this volume.

This volume continues the story of Burke and the affairs of the East India Company which was begun in Volume V (OUP 1981, #70.00, 0-19-822417-6). By 1786, Burke had fixed on Warren Hastings as the main culprit for the abuses that seemed to him so glaring. He greeted Hastings's return to Britain with a parliamentary attack which culminated in a trial by impeachment in the House of Lords. This was to be one of Burke's major preoccupations for the rest of his life.The material presented in this volume covers two years of proceedings in the House of Commons and the first session of the trial in the Lords. Its highlights are two great set-piece speeches delivered to the Commons, which can be reconstructed from manuscript material as well as from contemporary reports; and the four-day oration with which Burke opened the prosecution before the Lords: for this a complete verbatim shorthand record exists. The material in these and other speeches is not only central to an understanding of Burke and India, but to his moral and political thought as a whole in the years immediately before the outbreak of the French Revolution.

A scholarly edition of the writings and speeches of Edmund Burke. The edition presents an authoritative text, together with an introduction, commentary notes, and scholarly apparatus.

Remaking the British Atlantic focuses on a crucial phase in the history of British-American relations: the first ten years of American Independence. These set the pattern for some years to come. On the one hand, there was to be no effective political rapprochement after rebellion and war. Mainstream British opinion was little influenced by the failure to subdue the revolt or by the emergence of a new America, for which they mostly felt disdain. What were taken to be the virtues of the British constitution were confidently reasserted and there was little inclination either to disengage from empire or to manage it in different ways. For their part, many Americans defined the new order that they were seeking to establish by their rejection of what they took to be the abuses of contemporary Britain. On the other hand, neither the trauma of war nor the failure to create harmonious political relations could prevent the re-establishment of the very close links that had spanned the pre-war Atlantic, locking people on both sides of it into close connections with one another. Many British migrants still went to America. Britain remained America's dominant trading partner. American tastes and the intellectual life of the new republic continued to be largely reflections of British tastes and ideas. America and Britain were too important for too many people in too many ways for political alienation to keep them apart.

Edmund Burke was both a political thinker of the utmost importance and an active participant in the day-to-day business of politics. It is the latter role that is the concern of this book, showing Burke engaging with issues concerning the West Indies, which featured so largely in British concerns in the later eighteenth century. Initially, Burke saw the islands as a means by which his close connections might make their fortunes, later he was concerned with them as a great asset to be managed in the national interest, and, finally, he became a participant in debates about the slave trade.This volume adds a new dimension to assessments of Burke's views on empire, hitherto largely confined to Ireland, India, and America, and explores the complexities of his response to slavery. The system outraged his abundantly attested concern for the suffering caused by abuses of British power overseas, but one which he also recognised to be fundamental for sustaining the wealth generated by the West Indies, which he deemed essential to Britain's national power. He therefore sought compromises in the gradual reform of the system rather than immediate abolition of the trade or emancipation of the slaves.

Volume II of The Oxford History of the British Empire examines the history of British worldwide expansion from the Glorious Revolution of 1689 to the end of the Napoleonic Wars, a crucial phase in the creation of the modern British Empire. This is the age of General Wolfe, Clive of India, and Captain Cook. An international team of experts deploy the latest scholarly research to trace and analyze development and expansion over more than a century. They show how trade, warfare, and migration created an Empire, at first overwhelmingly in the Americas but later increasingly in Asia. Although the Empire was ruptured by the American Revolution, it survived and grew into the British Empire that was to dominate the world during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Series BlurbThe Oxford History of the British Empire is a major new assessment of the Empire in the light of recent scholarship and the progressive opening of historical records. From the founding of colonies in North America and the West Indies in the seventeenth century to the reversion of Hong Kong to China at the end of the twentieth, British imperialism was a catalyst for far-reaching change. The Oxford History of the British Empire as a comprehensive study allows us to understand the end of Empire in relation to its beginnings, the meaning of British imperialism for the ruled as well as the rulers, and the significance of the British Empire as a theme in world history.

In The Making and Unmaking of Empires P. J. Marshall, distinguished author of numerous books on the British Empire and former Rhodes Professor of Imperial History, provides a unified interpretation of British imperial history in the later eighteenth century. He brings together into a common focus Britain's loss of empire in North America and the winning of territorial dominion in parts of India and argues that these developments were part of a single phase of Britain's imperial history, rather than marking the closing of a 'first' Atlantic empire and the rise of a 'second' eastern one. In both India and North America Britain pursued similar objectives in this period. Fearful of the apparent enmity of France, Britain sought to secure the interests overseas which were thought to contribute so much to her wealth and power. This involved imposing a greater degree of control over colonies in America and over the East India Company and its new possessions in India. Aspirations to greater control also reflected an increasing confidence in Britain's capacity to regulate the affairs of subject peoples, especially through parliament.If British objectives throughout the world were generally similar, whether they could be achieved depended on the support or at least acquiescence of those they tried to rule. Much of this book is concerned with bringing together the findings of the rich historical writing on both post-Mughal India and late colonial America to assess the strengths and weaknesses of empire in different parts of the world. In North America potential allies who were closely linked to Britain in beliefs, culture and economic interest were ultimately alienated by Britain's political pretensions. Empire was extremely fragile in two out of the three main Indian settlements. In Bengal, however, the British achieved a modus vivendi with important groups which enabled them to build a secure base for the future subjugation of the subcontinent.With the authority of one who has made the study of empire his life's work, Marshall provides a valuable resource for scholar and student alike.

Remaking the British Atlantic focuses on a crucial phase in the history of British-American relations: the first ten years of American Independence. These set the pattern for some years to come. On the one hand, there was to be no effective political rapprochement after rebellion and war. Mainstream British opinion was little influenced by the failure to subdue the revolt or by the emergence of a new America, for which they mostly felt distain. What were taken to be the virtues of the British constitution were confidently reasserted and there was little inclination either to disengage from empire or to manage it in different ways, as is shown in chapters dealing with Britain's continuing imperial commitments around the Atlantic. For their part, many Americans defined the new order that they were seeking to establish by their rejection of what they took to be the abuses of contemporary Britain. On the other hand, neither the trauma of war nor the failure to create harmonious political relations could prevent the re-establishment of the very close links that had spanned the pre-war Atlantic, locking people on both sides of it into close connections with one another. Many British migrants still went to America. Britain remained America's dominant trading partner. American tastes and the intellectual life of the new republic continued to be largely reflections of British tastes and ideas. America and Britain were too important for too many people in too many ways for political alienation to keep them apart.

This fourth volume in the Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke series is also the last of the three Party and Parliament volumes, which follow Edmund Burke through from the opening of a newly elected Parliament which assembled on 31 October 1780 to his retirement from the Commons in 1794.This volume addresses Burke's views on the authority of Parliament over the British provinces in India, and his concerns about the implications of the French Revolution for British politics. He also expresses his views on issues that had always greatly interested him, such as the reform of criminal law, the confinement of debtors, and the abolition of what he regarded as outmoded economic regulations.The texts for the items, which have appeared in previous editions of Burke's Works, have been reconstructed, largely by the use of manuscripts, and many of the shorter speeches appear here in print for the first time.

The aim of Bengal: The British Bridgehead is to explain how, in the eighteenth century, Britain established her rule in eastern India, the first part of the subcontinent to be incorporated into the British Empire. Though the British were not in firm control of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa until 1765, to illustrate the circumstances in which they gained power and elucidate the Indian inheritance that so powerfully shaped the early years of their rule, professor Marshall begins his analysis around 1740 with the reign of Alivardi Khan, the last effective Mughal ruler of eastern India. He then explores the social, cultural and economic changes that followed the imposition of foreign rule and seeks to assess the consequences for the peoples of the region; emphasis is given throughout as much to continuities rooted deep in the history of Bengal as to the more obvious effects of British domination. The volume closes in the 1820s when, with British rule firmly established, a new pattern of cultural and economic relations was developing between Britain and eastern India.

One of the incidental consequences of the success of British arms in eighteenth-century India was the appearance of a number of publications which reflect the intense curiosity of contemporary Europeans about strange peoples, their manners and religions. Of the three principal religions of India, Hinduism attracted the most attention. European contact with Islam was several centuries old, while few travellers could identify Buddhism with any certainty. This book reprints some of the most significant English contributions to the early European understanding of Hinduism.

The aim of Bengal: The British Bridgehead is to explain how, in the eighteenth century, Britain established her rule in eastern India, the first part of the subcontinent to be incorporated into the British Empire. Though the British were not in firm control of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa until 1765, to illustrate the circumstances in which they gained power and elucidate the Indian inheritance that so powerfully shaped the early years of their rule, professor Marshall begins his analysis around 1740 with the reign of Alivardi Khan, the last effective Mughal ruler of eastern India. He then explores the social, cultural and economic changes that followed the imposition of foreign rule and seeks to assess the consequences for the peoples of the region; emphasis is given throughout as much to continuities rooted deep in the history of Bengal as to the more obvious effects of British domination. The volume closes in the 1820s when, with British rule firmly established, a new pattern of cultural and economic relations was developing between Britain and eastern India.

This book, first published in 1968, is a study of the impact made on Britain by the conquest of large parts of India in the second half of the eighteenth century. The sudden success of the East India Company in subjugating a vast population with a sophisticated civilization created problems of an unprecedented kind for Britain. It raised in an acute form questions about the scope and limits of state action, the rights of chartered bodies, the duties of conquerors to subject peoples, the appropriateness of exporting western ideals and concepts of law and government to Asia, and the manner in which the resources of the East could best contribute to Britain's power and wealth.These and similar topics were discussed at length in Parliament, the press, books and pamphlets, and in the correspondence of private individuals. A selection of this material, drawing on a wide and varied range of printed and manuscript sources, has been made to illustrate the arguments used in this debate and the manner in which solutions to some of the problems were gradually worked out over a period of more than fifty years. By 1813, after much trial and error, the outline of the political, administrative and economic links which were to bind India to Britain for much of the nineteenth century are already visible.