'A painful lesson in international politics' - Anglo-Australian relations in the Second World War revealed the rhetoric of Empire not matched by a British commitment to Australia's defence.
Personal persuasion and the hope of maintaining a Scottish identity encouraged emigrants to a better life in 1870s Canada - but their experiences on arrival were far from Utopian.
Paul Rich describes how the aggressive imperialism of the late Victorian age co-existed uneasily with the intellectual search for English 'roots' in a pre-industrial and mythical past.
‘England… requires markets more than colonies.’ Mary Kingsley’s espousal of the African cause was founded on the empathy between second-class citizens in a white, male-dominated society, as Deborah Birkett reveals.
'Beyond the pale' - the imperialists' vision of the Irish as ignoble savages originated in the attitudes and writings of medieval Englishmen.
Buying and selling with our 'kith and kin' was the hallmark of an intensive inter-war campaign for the idea of Empire.
Philip Mansel looks at the commemorations surrounding the 250th anniversary of the death of a Habsburg monarch.
Victor Bailey reviews two titles on Empire and Culture.
Helen Wallis charts the Portugal's astonishing success in voyages of exploration between 1415 and 1520
A damned inheritance, hopelessly over-extended and out-resourced by the kings of France? Or an effective empire thrown away by incompetence and harshness? John Gillingham weighs the blame for John's loss of the Angevin dominions.
