Elites, Enterprise and the Making of the British Overseas Empire1688-1775 [Hardcover]

This book examines the cultural, economic, and social forces that shaped the development of the British empire in the eighteenth century. The empire is placed in a broad historiographical context informed by important recent work on the 'fiscal-military state', and 'gentlemanly capitalism'. This allows the empire to be seen not as a series of discrete, unconnected geographical regions scattered across the world, but as a commercial, cultural, and social body with its roots very firmly planted in metropolitan society.Preface - Abbreviations - PART 1: CONTEXTS AND CONTOURS - Historians and the Eighteenth-Century Empire - The Dynamics of Expansion - PART 2: METROPOLITAN ELITES AND THE OVERSEAS EMPIRE - Gentlemen and Entrepreneurs: Landowners, Merchants, and Bankers - Investment in Empire - PART 3: OVERSEAS ELITES IN THE BRITISH EMPIRE - Imperial Ties and the Anglicization of the Overseas Empire - Merchants, Planters, and the Gentlemanly Ideal - PART 4: A NEW IMPERIAL ORDER, 1750-75 - The End of the English Empire - Enterprise and Expansion: Drawing a Line - Afterword - Bibliography - IndexH.V.BOWEN