Making the Imperial Nation

How did creating the British Empire change politics in England itself?

After 1660, English governments aimed to convert scattered overseas dominions into a coordinated territorial power base. Stuart monarchs encouraged schemes for expansion in America, Africa, and Asia, imposed closer control over existing territories, and endorsed systems of slave labour to boost colonial prosperity. However, English power was precarious, and colonial designs were subject to regular defeats and failed experimentation. Recovering from recent Civil Wars, England itself was shaken by unrest and upheaval throughout the later seventeenth century. Colonial policies emerged from a kingdom riven with inner tensions, which it exported to enclaves overseas.

Gabriel Glickman reinstates the colonies within the domestic history of Restoration England in Making the Imperial Nation. He shows how the pursuit of empire raised moral and ideological controversies that divided political opinion and unsettled many received ideas of English national identity. Overseas ambitions disrupted bonds with Europe and strained relations with Scotland and Ireland. Vigorous debates were provoked by contact with non-Christian peoples and by changes brought to cultural tastes and consumer habits at home. England was becoming an imperial nation before it had acquired a secure territorial empire. The pressures of colonisation exerted a decisive influence over the wars, revolutions, and party conflicts that destabilised the later Stuart kingdom.