Empire Made: Two Centuries of British Influenced Globalisation

This broad history traces many of the key political and educational events that shaped two significant centuries of the British Empire. This vast imperial enterprise presided over a quarter of the world’s landmass and came close to achieving a world economy. A commercial expansion that was backed by Britain’s aristocratic gentry but governed by a new breed of university educated administrators. An elite group produced to manage Britain’s overseas interests – and to incidentally create the image of the stereotypically unflappable ‘Brit’. Universities and Empire advanced in a loose confederation that underpinned the progress of globalisation – a process that interconnects international trade and economics via technological advances in communication and transport. Globalisation permeates territorial boundaries and borders, it blurs the perception of distance – the sun may have long since set on the British Empire, but its administrators contributed mightily to shrinking the world it left behind.