Indiana University Press
Geographies of an Imperial Power: The British World, 1688-1815
Key Metrics
- Jeremy Black
- Indiana University Press
- Hardcover
- 9780253031570
- 9 X 6 X 0.88 inches
- 1.44 pounds
- History > Europe - Great Britain - General
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
From explorers tracing rivers to navigators hunting for longitude, spatial awareness and the need for empirical understanding were linked to British strategy in the 1700s. This strategy, in turn, aided in the assertion of British power and authority on a global scale. In this sweeping consideration of Britain in the 18th century, Jeremy Black explores the interconnected roles of power and geography in the creation of a global empire. Geography was at the heart of Britain's expansion into India, its response to uprisings in Scotland and America, and its revolutionary development of railways. Geographical dominance was reinforced as newspapers stoked the fires of xenophobia and defined the limits of cosmopolitan Europe as compared to the barbarism beyond. Geography provided a system of analysis and classification which gave Britain political, cultural, and scientific sovereignty. Black considers geographical knowledge not just as a tool for creating a shared cultural identity but also as a key mechanism in the formation of one of the most powerful and far-reaching empires the world has ever known.
Author Bio
Jeremy Black, a Senior Fellow, is professor of history at Exeter University. He studied at Queens’ College Cambridge, St John’s College Oxford, and Merton College Oxford before joining the University of Durham as a lecturer in 1980. There he gained his PhD and ultimately his professorship in 1994.
Black is a prolific lecturer and writer, the author of over 100 books. Many concern aspects of eighteenth century British, European and American political, diplomatic and military history. But he has also broadened his perspective, both temporally and geographically, and published on the history of the press, cartography, warfare, culture and on the nature and uses of history itself. Jeremy’s work adds up to the most sustained presentation of British history in recent decades. He is a major exponent of military, diplomatic and cartographic history and has been important in helping the British to look at their past, as well as in representing British history to foreign audiences.
- His books include Modern British History (Palgrave, 2000),
- The Politics of James Bond (Praeger, 2001),
- America as a Military Power 1775-1882 (Praeger, 2002),
- The World in the Twentieth Century (Longman, 2002),
- Parliament and Foreign Policy in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, 2004),
- The English Seaborne Empire, Yale, 2004,
- World War Two: A Military History (Routledge, 2003),
- Great Military Leaders and their Campaigns (Oct. 2008),
- Maps of War: Mapping conflict through the centuries (Conway, October 11, 2016),
- The Holocaust: History and Memory (Indiana University Press, August 14, 2016),
- Air Power: A Global History (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, March 10, 2016),
- War in Europe: 1450 to the Present (Bloomsbury Academic, February 11, 2016),
- Insurgency and Counterinsurgency: A Global History (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, August 3, 2016).
- The Society of Military History recognized Jeremy Black’s work in April 2008, presenting him with the Samuel Eliot Morison Prize for lifetime achievement.
Source: Foreign Policy Research Institute and JeremyBlack.com
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