Here you will find suggested reading that covers the broad scope of World Empires. This will be continued to be updated but please do not hesitate to ask for guidance or particular areas that interest you that you cannot find here. Any book marked with an * means we have a copy available to loan.
Bayly, C. A (2007). Empire and information: intelligence gathering and social communication in India, 1780-1870. New Delhi: Cambridge University Press.
Belich, James (2011). Replenishing the Earth: The Settler Revolution and the Rise of the Anglo World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. - Uncovering a 'settler revolution' that took place from the early nineteenth century that led to the explosive settlement of the American West and its forgotten twin, the British West, comprising the settler dominions of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.
Cannadine, David (2002). Ornamentalism: How the British Saw Their Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press. - David Cannadine looks at the British Empire from a new perspective--through the eyes of those who created and ruled it--and offers fresh insight into the driving forces behind the Empire.
Cohn, Bernard S (2006). Colonialism and its forms of knowledge the British in India. Princeton, NJ : Princeton Univ. Press - Bernard Cohn's interest in the construction of Empire as an intellectual and cultural phenomenon has set the agenda for the academic study of modern Indian culture for over two decades
Dalrymple, William (2019). The Anarchy: the East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing. - The Anarchy tells the remarkable story of how one of the world’s most magnificent empires disintegrated and came to be replaced by a dangerously unregulated private company, based thousands of miles overseas in one small office, five windows wide, and answerable only to its distant shareholders.
Dirks, N.B (2001). Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India .Princeton University Press. - Castes of Mind is an ambitious book, written by an accomplished scholar with a rare mastery of centuries of Indian history and anthropology. It uses the idea of caste as the basis for a magisterial history of modern India. and in making a powerful case that the colonial past continues to haunt the Indian present.
Fieldhouse, D K (1976). Economics and Empire. London: Palgrave Macmillian. -
Hobsbawm, Eric John (2014). The age of Empire: 1875-1914. - The splendid finale to Eric Hobsbawm's study of the 19th century, The Age of Empire covers the area of Western Imperialism and examines the forces that swept the world to the outbreak of World War One - and shaped modern society.
Klein, Herbert S (1999) The Atlantic Slave Trade. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mackenzie, John M (1984). Propaganda and Empire: The Manipulation of British Public Opinion, 1880-1960. Manchester: Manchester University Press. - In this illuminating study John M. Mackenzie explores the manifestations of the imperial idea, from the trappings of royalty through writers like G. A. Henty to the humble cigarette card.
McDonough, F (1994). The British Empire. London: Hodder and Stoughton. - The book sets the Empire within a broad historical context and not only explains its evolution and expansion in Africa and Asia, but also considers its impact on British politics, popular culture and society.
Olusoga, David & Erichsen, Casper (2011). The Kaiser's Holocaust: Germany's Forgotten Genocide and the Colonial Roots of Nazism. London: Faber & Faber. - Olusoga and Erichsen explore Germany's forgotten African Empire and the racial atrocities that took place there before the First World War and showing a precursor to the Nazi genocides of the 1940s.
Pakenham, Thomas (1991). The Scramble for Africa: The White Man’s Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876-1912. New York: Random House - In 1880 the continent of Africa was largely unexplored by Europeans. Less than thirty years later, only Liberia and Ethiopia remained unconquered by them. The rest - 10 million square miles with 110 million bewildered new subjects - had been carved up by five European powers
Said, E (1978). Orientalism . London: Penguin Books. - Orientalism" is one of the greatest and most influential of books of ideas to be published since the end of the European empires. For generations now it has defined our understanding of colonialism and empire and with each passing year its influence becomes if anything even greater.
Wagner, Kim A. 2014. The great fear of 1857: rumours, conspiracies and the making of the Indian uprising. New Delhi : Dev Publishers & Distributors, - The Great Fear of 1857 explores the existence of conspiracies during the early months of that year and presents a compelling and detailed narrative of the panics and rumours which moved Indians to take up arms. With its fresh and unsentimental approach, this book offers a radically new interpretation of one of the most controversial events in the history of British India.
*Walvin, James (1996). Questioning Slavery. Abingdon: Routledge. - An excellent introduction to the study of slavery in the Americas. Walvin is the go to when reading about the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade