Breaking open colonization to reveal tangled cultural and economic networks, Webs of Empire offers new paths into colonial history. Linking Gore and Chicago, Maori and Asia, India and newspapers, whalers and writing, Ballantyne presents empire building as a spreading web of connected places, people, ideas, and trade. These links question narrow, national stories, while broadening perspectives on the past and the legacies of colonialism that persist today. Bringing together essays from two decades of prolific publishing on international colonial history, Webs of Empire establishes Tony Ballantyne as one of the leading historians of the British Empire.

"Positions New Zealand within these 'webs of empire', connecting Gore and Chicago, Maori and Asia, India and newspapers, whalers and writing. His work breaks open the narrative of colonisation to offer sharp new perspectives on New Zealand history"--Back cover.

How did England go from a position of inferiority to the powerful Spanish empire to achieve global pre-eminence? In this important second book, Alison Games, a colonial American historian, explores the period from 1560 to 1660, when England challenged dominion over the American continents, established new long-distance trade routes in the eastern Mediterranean and the East Indies, and emerged in the 17th century as an empire to reckon with. Games discusses such topics as the men and women who built the colonial enterprise, the political and fiscal factors that made such growth possible, and domestic politics that fueled commercial expansion. Her cast of characters includes soldiers and diplomats, merchants and mariners, ministers and colonists, governors and tourists, revealing the surprising breath of foreign experiences ordinary English people had in this period. This book is also unusual in stretching outside Europe to include Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. A comparative imperial study and expansive world history, this book makes a lasting argument about the formative years of the English empire.

Breaking open colonization to reveal tangled cultural and economic networks, Webs of Empire offers new paths into our colonial history. Linking Gore and Chicago, Maori and Asia, India and newspapers, whalers and writing, empire building becomes a spreading web of connected places, people, ideas, and trade. These links question narrow, national stories, while broadening perspectives on the past and the legacies of colonialism that persist today. Bringing together essays from two decades of prolific publishing on international colonial history, Webs of Empire establishes Tony Ballantyne as one of the leading historians of the British Empire.

Examines how “Indianness” has propagated U.S. conceptions of empire

Investigating how intimacy is constructed across the restless world of empire

Following the end of World War II in Asia, the Allied powers repatriated over six million Japanese nationals and deported more than a million colonial subjects from Japan. Watt analyzes how the human remnants of empire served as sites of negotiation in the process of jettisoning the colonial project and in the creation of new national identities.