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

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiii

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2. Contexts and Contours

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

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   2. Historians and the Eighteenth-Century Empire

      • H. V. Bowen

      Pages 3-21

   3. The Dynamics of Expansion

      • H. V. Bowen

      Pages 22-44

3. Metropolitan Elites and the Overseas Empire

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 45-45

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   2. Gentlemen and Entrepreneurs: Landowners, Merchants and Bankers

      • H. V. Bowen

      Pages 47-78

   3. Investment in Empire

      • H. V. Bowen

      Pages 79-100

4. Overseas Elites in the British Empire

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 101-101

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   2. Imperial Ties and the Anglicization of the Overseas Empire

      • H. V. Bowen

      Pages 103-124

   3. Merchants, Planters and the Gentlemanly Ideal

      • H. V. Bowen

      Pages 125-146

5. A New Imperial Order, 1750–75

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 147-147

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   2. The End of the English Empire

      • H. V. Bowen

      Pages 149-170

   3. Enterprise and Expansion: Drawing a Line

      • H. V. Bowen

      Pages 171-193

   4. Afterword

      • H. V. Bowen

      Pages 194-196

6. Back Matter

   Pages 197-257

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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.

• bibliography
• British Empire
• eighteenth century
• empire
• Expansion
• society

• University of Leicester, UK

  H. V. Bowen

H.V.BOWEN

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