Historiography of the British Empire. The historiography of the British Empire refers to the studies, sources, critical methods and interpretations used by scholars to develop a history of Britains empire. Historians and their ideas are the focus here specific lands and historical dates and episodes are covered in the article on the British Empire. Scholars have long studied the Empire, looking at the causes for its formation, its relations to the French and other empires, and the kinds of people who became imperialists or anti imperialists, together with their mindsets. The history of the breakdown of the Empire has attracted scholars of the histories of the United States which broke away in 1. The historiography of the British Empire refers to the studies, sources, critical methods and interpretations used by scholars to develop a history of Britains empire. India independent in 1. African colonies independent in the 1. John Darwin 2. 01. Historians have approached imperial history from numerous angles over the last century. In recent decades scholars have expanded the range of topics into new areas in social and cultural history, paying special attention to the impact on the natives and their agency in response. The cultural turn in historiography has recently emphasised issues of language, religion, gender, and identity. Recent debates have considered the relationship between the metropole Great Britain itself, especially London, and the colonial peripheries. Torrent Gaspard Proust. Wesleys Tobacco East London' title='Wesleys Tobacco East London' />The British world historians stress the material, emotional, and financial links among the colonizers across the imperial diaspora. The new imperial historians, by contrast, are more concerned with the Empires impact on the metropole, including everyday experiences and images. Phillip Buckner says that by the 1. Empire as benevolent. The new thinking was that the impact was not so great,clarification needed for historians had discovered the many ways which the locals responded to and adapted to Imperial rule. The implication Buckner says is that Imperial history is therefore less important than was formerly believed. Historical frameworkeditHistorians agree that the Empire was not planned by anyone. The concept of the British Empire is a construct and was never a legal entity, unlike the Roman or other European empires. There was no imperial constitution, no office of emperor, no uniformity of laws. So when it began, when it ended, and what stages it went through is a matter of opinion, not official orders or laws. The dividing line was Britains shift in the 1. U. S. independence. The London bureaucracy governing the colonies also changed, policies to white settler colonies changed and slavery was phased out. The first major history was The Expansion of England 1. Sir John Seeley. 8 It was a bestseller for decades, and was widely admired by the imperialistic faction in British politics, and opposed by the anti imperialists of the Liberal Party. The book points out how and why Britain gained the colonies, the character of the Empire, and the light in which it should be regarded. It was well written and persuasive. Seeley argued that British rule is in Indias best interest. He also warned that India had to be protected and vastly increased the responsibilities and dangers to Britain. The book contains the much quoted statement that we seem, as it were, to have conquered half the world in a fit of absence of mind. Expansion of England appeared at an opportune time, and did much to make the British regard the colonies as an expansion of the British state as well as of British nationality, and to confirm to them the value of Britains empire in the East. In his history of the British Empire, written in 1. A. P. Newton lamented that Seeley dealt in the main with the great wars of the eighteenth century and this gave the false impression that the British Empire has been founded largely by war and conquest, an idea that was unfortunately planted firmly in the public mind, not only in Great Britain, but also in foreign countries. Historians often point out that in the First British Empire before the 1. English businessmen or religious groups. Although protected by the Royal Navy, they were not funded or planned by the government. After the American war, says Bruce Collins, British leaders focused not on any military lessons to be learned, but upon the regulation and expansion of imperial trade and the readjustment of Britains constitutional relationship with its colonies. In the Second British Empire, by 1. The most politically developed colonies were the self governing colonies in the Caribbean and those that later formed Canada and Australia. India was in a category by itself, and its immense size and distance required control of the routes to it, and in turn permitted British naval dominance from the Persian Gulf to the South China Sea. PROVERBS 1. Our Daily Bread, Copyright RBC Ministries, Grand Rapids, MI. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. From Paul Apples Introduction. Ossett people including Benjamin Ingham of Palermo, Benjamin Ingham of the Inghamites and John Wheelwright. Prayer Patrol. By Dave Branon. Timothy 13. I was headed out the door one morning when my wife Sue said, Dont forget to pray for Julie. She has a big test. The third group was a mixed bag of smaller territories, including isolated ports used as way stations to India, and emerging trade entrepots such as Hong Kong and Singapore, along with a few isolated ports in Africa. The fourth kind of empire was the informal empire, that is financial dominance exercised through investments, as in Latin America, and including the complex situation in Egypt it was owned theoretically by the Ottoman Empire, but ruled by Britain. Darwin argues the British Empire was distinguished by the adaptability of its builders The hallmark of British imperialism was its extraordinary versatility in method, outlook and object. The British tried to avoid military action in favour of reliance on networks of local elites and businessmen who voluntarily collaborated and in turn gained authority and military protection from British recognition. Historians argue that Britain built an informal economic empire through control of trade and finance in Latin America after the independence of Spanish and Portuguese colonies about 1. By the 1. 84. 0s, Britain had adopted a highly successful policy of free trade that gave it dominance in the trade of much of the world. After losing its first Empire to the Americans, Britain then turned its attention towards Asia, Africa, and the Pacific. Following the defeat of Napoleonic France in 1. Britain enjoyed a century of almost unchallenged dominance and expanded its imperial holdings around the globe. Increasing degrees of internal autonomy were granted to its white settler colonies in the 2. A resurgence came in the late 1. Scramble for Africa and major additions in Asia and the Middle East. Leadership in British imperialism was expressed by Joseph Chamberlain and Lord Rosebury, and implemented in Africa by Cecil Rhodes. Other influential spokesmen included Lord Cromer, Lord Curzon, General Kitchner, Lord Milner, and the writer Rudyard Kipling. They all were influenced by Seeleys Expansion of England. The British Empire was the largest Empire that the world has ever seen both in terms of landmass and population. Its power, both military and economic, remained unmatched in 1. In 1. 87. 6 Disraeli overcame vehement Liberal opposition and obtained for Queen Victoria the title of Empress of India she was not Empress of the British Empire. British historians focused on the diplomatic, military and administrative aspects of the Empire before the 1. They saw a benevolent enterprise. Younger generations branched off into a variety of social, economic and cultural themes, and took a much more critical stance. Representative of the old tradition was the Cambridge History of India, a large scale project published in five volumes between 1. Ossett History The People of Ossett.