Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×

Online ordering will be unavailable from 17:00 GMT on Friday, April 25 until 17:00 GMT on Sunday, April 27 due to maintenance. We apologise for the inconvenience.

  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. The Ideological Origins of the British Empire
  • Cited by 488
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
July 2010
Print publication year:
2000
Online ISBN:
9780511755965
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511755965
Subjects:
History of Ideas, History, History of Ideas and Intellectual History
Series:
Ideas in Context (59)
Information

Book description

The Ideological Origins of the British Empire presents a comprehensive history of British conceptions of empire for more than half a century. David Armitage traces the emergence of British imperial identity from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-eighteenth centuries, using a full range of manuscript and printed sources. By linking the histories of England, Scotland and Ireland with the history of the British Empire, he demonstrates the importance of ideology as an essential linking between the processes of state-formation and empire-building. This book sheds light on major British political thinkers, from Sir Thomas Smith to David Hume, by providing fascinating accounts of the 'British problem' in the early modern period, of the relationship between Protestantism and empire, of theories of property, liberty and political economy in imperial perspective, and of the imperial contribution to the emergence of British 'identities' in the Atlantic world.

Awards

Winner of the History Today Book of the Year prize for 2000

Reviews

‘The Ideological Origins of the British Empire is an important and necessary work.’

Andrew Hadfield Source: The Times Literary Supplement

‘ … lucid in style and solid in research.’

Source: The Calcutta Telegraph (Editor’s Choice)

‘… Armitage has produced an unexpected, original and persuasive account of the vexed - and charged - ideological relationship of empire, liberty and Britishness during the early modern period.’

Source: History of Political Thought

' … a valuable addition to studies on the British Empire. The author furnishes a fascinating analysis of political thought and ideological history, showing the difficulties encountered in the way of legitimating colonialism and political domination.'

Source: Contemporary South Asia

' … a valuable addition to studies on the British Empire. The author furnishes a fascinating analysis of political thought and ideological history, showing the difficulties encountered in the way of legitimating colonialism and political domination.'

Source: Contemporary South Asia

‘… impressively learned and forcefully argued …’.

Source: Yearbook of English Studies

Refine List

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

Contents

Contents

Metrics

Altmetric attention score

Full text views

Total number of HTML views: 0
Total number of PDF views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

Book summary page views

Total views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

Usage data cannot currently be displayed.