1598: Dutch established colony on uninhabited island of Mauritius; they abandon it in 1710.[1]
1608: Dutch opened their first trading post in India at Golconda.[2]
1613: Dutch East India Company expands operations in Java.[3]
1613–20: Netherlands becomes England's major rival in trade, fishing, and whaling. The Dutch form alliances with Sweden and the Hanseatic League; England counters with an alliance with Denmark.[4]
1623. The Amboyna massacre occurs in Japan with execution of English traders; England closes its commercial base opened in 1613 at Hirado. Trade ends for more than two centuries.
Map of territorial claims in North America by 1750, before the French and Indian War, which was part of the greater worldwide conflict known as the Seven Years' War (1756 to 1763). Possessions of Britain (pink), France (blue), and Spain. (White boarder lines mark later Canadian Provinces and US States for reference)
Map of the northern part and parts of the southern parts of the America, from the mouth of the Saint Laurent River to the Island of Cayenne, with the new discoveries of the Mississippi (or Colbert) River. This map shows the results of the expeditions of Father Marquette and L. Jolliet (1673) and the Cavelier de la Salle expedition in the Mississippi valley. The map shows three forts built between 1679 and 1680: Conty fort (near Niagara Falls), Miamis Fort (south of Michigan lake), and Crèvecœur fort (Left bank of the Illinois River). Mississippi river course is only shown upstream of Ohio confluence.
1634 – Wethersfield, Connecticut – First English settlement in Connecticut, comprising migrants from Massachusetts Bay.[14]
1704: Gibraltar captured by British on 4 August; becomes British naval bastion into the 21st century[21]
1713: Treaty of Utrecht, ends War of the Spanish Succession and gives Britain territorial gains, especially Gibraltar, Acadia, Newfoundland, and the land surrounding Hudson Bay. The lower Great Lakes-Ohio area became a free trade zone.[22]
1756–1763 Seven Years' War, Britain, Prussia, and Hanover against France, Austria, the Russian Empire, Sweden, and Saxony. Major battles in Europe and North America; the East India Company also in involved in the Third Carnatic War (1756–1763) in India. Britain victorious and takes control of all of Canada; France seeks revenge.[23][24]
1784: Britain allows trade with America but forbid some American food exports to West Indies; British exports to America reach £3.7 million, imports only £750,000
1793–1815: Wars of the French Revolution, and Napoleonic wars; French conquests spread Ideas of the French Revolution, including abolition of serfdom, modern legal systems, and of Holy Roman Empire; stimulate rise of nationalism
1804–1865: Russia expand across Siberia to Pacific.[28]
1807: Britain makes the international slave trade criminal; Slave Trade Act 1807; United States criminalizes the international slave trade at the same time.
1814–15: Congress of Vienna; Reverses French conquests; restores reactionaries to power. However, many liberal reforms persist; Russia emerges as a powerful factor in European affairs.[31]
1822–27: George Canning in charge of British foreign policy, avoids co-operation with European powers.[34]
1823: United States issues Monroe Doctrine to preserve newly independent Latin American states; issued in cooperation with Britain, whose goal is to prevent French & Spanish influence and allow British merchants access to the opening markets. American goal is to prevent the New World becoming a battlefield among European powers.[35]
1842: Britain forces China to sign the Treaty of Nanking. It opens trade, cedes territory (especially Hong Kong), fixes Chinese tariffs at a low rate, grants extraterritorial rights to foreigners, and provides both a most favoured nation clause, as well as diplomatic representation.[37]
1846: Oregon Treaty ends dispute with the United States. Border settled on the 49th parallel. The British territory becomes British Columbia and later joins Canada. The American territory becomes Oregon Territory and will later become the states of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, as well as parts of Wyoming and Montana.[39][40]
1846: The Corn Laws are repealed; free trade in grain strengthens the British economy By increasing trade with exporting nations.[41]
1857: Indian Rebellion suppressed. It has major long-term impact on reluctance to grant independence to Indians.[42]
1858: The government of India transferred from East India Company to the crown; the government appoints a viceroy. He rules portions of India directly, and dominates local princes in the other portions. British rule guarantees that local wars will not happen inside India.[43][44]
1861–1867: French intervention in Mexico; United States demands French withdrawal after 1865; France removes its army, and its puppet Emperor is executed.
1862: Treaty of Saigon; France occupies three provinces in southern Vietnam.[45]
1863: France establishes a protectorate over Cambodia.
1867: British North America Act, 1867 creates the Dominion of Canada, a federation with internal self-government; foreign and defence matters are still handled by London.[46]
1882: Korea signs equal treaties with the United States and others
1884: France makes Vietnam a country .
1885: King Leopold of Belgium establishes the Congo Free State, under his personal control. There is a role for the government of Belgium until the King's financial difficulties lead to a series of loans; it takes over in 1908.[48]
Central and east Africa, 1898, during the Fashoda Incident.
1899–1900: Anti-imperialist sentiment in the United States mobilizes but fails to stop the expansion.[53]
1900-08: King Leopold is denounced worldwide for his maltreatment of rubber workers in Congo. The campaign is led by journalist E.D. Morel.[54]
1908: Austria annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina; pays compensation and colonial issues. The chief pressure group was the Parti colonial, a coalition of 50 organizations with a combined total of 5,000 members.[55]
1914–1936
1917: Jones Act gives full American citizenship to Puerto Ricans.[56]
1918: Austrian Empire ends, Austria becomes a republic, Hungary becomes a kingdom, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Yugoslavia become independent
1919: German and Ottoman colonies came under the control of the League of Nations, which distributed them as "mandates" to Great Britain, France, Japan, Belgium, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.[57]
1936: Italy in a few months (between spring 1935 and summer 1936) conquest the last independent territory in Africa: Ethiopia. In 1936 it is created the last european empire in History: the Italian Empire.
^Perry J. Moree, A Concise History of Dutch Mauritius, 1598-1710: A Fruitful and Healthy Land (Routledge, 1998).
^Om Prakash, The Dutch East India Company and the Economy of Bengal, 1630-1720 (2014)
^Leonard Blusse, An Insane Administration and Insanitary Town: The Dutch East India Company and Batavia (1619–1799) (Springer Netherlands, 1985).
^Jack S. Levy and Salvatore Ali. "From commercial competition to strategic rivalry to war: The evolution of the Anglo-Dutch rivalry, 1609-52." in Paul Diehl, ed. The dynamics of enduring rivalries (1998) pp29-63.
^Donald C. Wellington, French East India companies: A historical account and record of trade (Hamilton Books, 2006)
^Theodore G. Corbett, "Migration to a Spanish imperial frontier in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: St. Augustine." Hispanic American Historical Review (1974): 414–430 in JSTOR
^Horgan, Paul (1994). The Centuries of Santa Fe. University of New Mexico Press. ISBN9780826314918.
^Addison Emery Verrill, The Bermuda Islands: Their Scenery, Climate, Productions, Physiography, Natural History and Geology: With Sketches of Their Early History and the Changes Due to Man (1902) online
^Wesley Frank Craven, "An introduction to the history of Bermuda." William and Mary College Quarterly (1937): 318–362. in JSTOR
^George F. Dow, Every Day Life in the Massachusetts Bay Colony (1935).
^Olmert, Michael (2007). Official Guide to Colonial Williamsburg. Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. ISBN9780879352349.
^Liam Connell, "‘A Great or Notorious Liar’: Katherine Harrison and her Neighbours, Wethersfield, Connecticut, 1668–1670." Eras 12.2 (2011); Story of an accused witch put on trial but survived. online
^Edward Gray and Jane Kamensky, eds/ The Oxford Handbook of the American Revolution (2013) Wide-ranging overview by scholars.
^Andrew Stockley, Britain and France at the Birth of America: The European Powers and the Peace Negotiations of 1782-1783 (U. of Exeter Press, 2001)
^Denys Mostyn Forrest, Tiger of Mysore: The life and death of Tipu Sultan (1970)
^Mark Bassin, "Inventing Siberia: visions of the Russian East in the early nineteenth century." American Historical Review 96.3 (1991): 763-794. online
^Rory Miller, Britain and Latin America in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (1993).
^Barbara A. Tenenbaum, "Merchants, Money, and Mischief the British in Mexico, 1821–1862." The Americas 35.03 (1979): 317-339.
^Brian E. Vick, The Congress of Vienna: power and politics after Napoleon (Harvard UP, 2014).
^Victoria Glendinning, Raffles and the Golden Opportunity (2012).
^Alan K. Manchester, "The recognition of Brazilian independence." Hispanic American Historical Review 31.1 (1951): 80-96 in JSTOR.
^H.W.V. Temperley, The Foreign Policy of Canning, 1822-1827: England, the Neo-Holy Alliance, and the New World (1925) online
^Dexter Perkins, "Europe, Spanish America, and the Monroe Doctrine." American Historical Review (1922) 27#2 pp: 207–218. in JSTOR
^James S. Olson and Robert Shadle, eds. Historical dictionary of the British empire (1996) vol 1 p 47
^Joseph Schafer, "The British Attitude toward the Oregon Question, 1815–1846." American Historical Review (1911) 16#2 pp: 273–299. in JSTOR
^Richard W. Van Alstyne, "International Rivalries in Pacific Northwest." Oregon Historical Quarterly (1945): 185–218. in JSTOR
^David M. Pletcher, The Diplomacy of Annexation: Texas, Oregon, and the Mexican War (1973).
^Bernard Semmel, The Rise of Free Trade Imperialism: Classical Political Economy the Empire of Free Trade and Imperialism, 1750–1850 (2004)
^Michael Adas, "Twentieth Century Approaches to the Indian Mutiny of 1857–58", Journal of Asian History (1971) 5#1 pp 1–19
^Bhupen Qanungo, "A study of British relations with the native states of India, 1858–62." Journal of Asian Studies (1967) 26#2 pp: 251–265.
^Donovan Williams, "The Council of India and the Relationship between the Home and Supreme Governments, 1858–1870." English Historical Review (1966): 56–73 in JSTOR.
^Oscar Chapuis, The Last Emperors of Vietnam: From Tu Duc to Bao Dai (Greenwood, 2000). online
^Donald Creighton, The Road to Confederation: The Emergence of Canada, 1863–1867 (1965).
^Thomas Pakenham, Scramble for Africa: The White Man's Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876–1912 (1991)
^Martin Stuart-Fox, "The French in Laos, 1887–1945." Modern Asian Studies (1995) 29#1 pp: 111–139.
^Peter Duus, The Abacus and the Sword: The Japanese Penetration of Korea, 1895–1910 (1995)
^Thomas J. Osborne, "The Main Reason for Hawaiian Annexation in July, 1898," Oregon Historical Quarterly (1970) 71#2 pp. 161–178 in JSTOR
^Fabian Hilfrich, Debating American Exceptionalism: Empire and Democracy in the Wake of the Spa (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012)
^Christopher Lasch, "The Anti-Imperialists, the Philippines, and the Inequality of Man." Journal of Southern History (1958): 319–331. in JSTOR
^Matthew G. Stanard, Selling the Congo: A History of European Pro-Empire Propaganda and the Making of Belgian Imperialism (U of Nebraska Press, 2012).
^Anthony Adamthwaite, Grandeur And Misery: France's Bid for Power in Europe, 1914–1940 (1995) p 6
^Willie Santana, "Incorporating the Lonely Star: How Puerto Rico Became Incorporated and Earned a Place in the Sisterhood of States." Tennessee Journal of Law and Policy 9 (2013) pp: 433+ online.
^Nele Matz, "Civilization and the Mandate System under the League of Nations as Origin of Trusteeship." Max Planck Yearbook of United Nations Law (2005) 9#1 pp: 47–95. online
Further reading
Surveys
Morris, Richard B. and Graham W. Irwin, eds. Harper Encyclopedia of the Modern World: A Concise Reference History from 1760 to the Present (1970) online
Albrecht-Carrié, René. A Diplomatic History of Europe Since the Congress of Vienna (1958), 736pp; a basic introduction, 1815–1955 online free to borrow
Baumgart, Winfried. Imperialism: The Idea and Reality of British and French Colonial Expansion, 1880–1914 (1982)
Betts, Raymond F. The False Dawn: European Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century (1975)
Betts, Raymond F. Uncertain Dimensions: Western Overseas Empires in the Twentieth Century (1985)
Burbank, Jane, and Frederick Cooper. Empires in World History: Power and the Politics of Difference (2011), Very wide-ranging coverage from Rome to the 1980s; 511pp
Dodge, Ernest S. Islands and Empires: Western Impact on the Pacific and East Asia (1976)
Furber, Holden. Rival Empires of Trade in the Orient, 1600-1800 (1976)
Furber, Holden, and Boyd C Shafer. Rival Empires of Trade in the Orient, 1600-1800 (1976)
Hodge, Carl Cavanagh, ed. Encyclopedia of the Age of Imperialism, 1800-1914 (2 vol. 2007), Focus on European leaders
Kennedy, Paul. The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 (1989) excerpt and text search; very wide-ranging, with much on economic power
Langer, William. An Encyclopedia of World History (5th ed. 1973), very detailed outline; 6th edition ed. by Peter Stearns (2001) has more detail on Third World
McAlister, Lyle N. Spain and Portugal in the New World, 1492-1700 (1984)
Mowat, R. B. A History of European Diplomacy 1815–1914 (1922), basic introduction
Page, Melvin E. ed. Colonialism: An International Social, Cultural, and Political Encyclopedia (3 vol. 2003); vol. 3 consists of primary documents; vol. 2 pages 647-831 has a detailed chronology
Porter, Andrew. European Imperialism, 1860-1914 (1996), Brief survey focuses on historiography
Savelle, Max. Empires to Nations: Expansion in America, 1713-1824 (1975)
Smith, Tony. The Pattern of Imperialism: The United States, Great Britain and the Late-Industrializing World Since 1815 (1981)
Taylor, A.J.P. The Struggle for Mastery in Europe: 1848–1918 (1954) excerpt and text search; advanced analysis Of diplomacy
Wilson, Henry. The Imperial Experience in Sub-Saharan Africa since 1870 (1977)
Wesseling, H.L. and Arnold J. Pomerans. Divide and rule: The partition of Africa, 1880–1914 (Praeger, 1996.) online
Asia
Cady, John Frank. The roots of French imperialism in Eastern Asia (1967).
Darby, Phillip. Three Faces of Imperialism: British and American Approaches to Asia and Africa, 1870-1970 (1987)
Davis, Clarence B. "Financing Imperialism: British and American Bankers as Vectors of Imperial Expansion in China, 1908–1920." Business History Review 56.02 (1982): 236–264.
Harris, Paul W. "Cultural imperialism and American protestant missionaries: collaboration and dependency in mid-nineteenth-century China." Pacific Historical Review (1991): 309–338. in JSTOR
Kazemzadeh, Firuz. Russia and Britain in Persia, 1864-1914: A Study in Imperialism (1968)
Lebra-Chapman, Joyce. Japan's Greater East Asia co-prosperity sphere in World War II: selected readings and documents (Oxford University Press, 1975)
Lee, Robert. France and the exploitation of China, 1885-1901: A study in economic imperialism (1989)
Webster, Anthony. Gentleman Capitalists: British Imperialism in Southeast Asia 1770-1890 (IB Tauris, 1998)
Atlantic world
Greene, Jack P., and Philip D. Morgan, Atlantic History: A Critical Appraisal, ed. by (Oxford University Press, 2009)
Hodson, Christopher, and Brett Rushforth, "Absolutely Atlantic: Colonialism and the Early Modern French State in Recent Historiography," History Compass, (January 2010) 8#1 pp 101–117
Latin America
Brown, Matthew, ed. Informal Empire in Latin America: Culture, Commerce, and Capital (2009)
Dávila, Carlos, et al. . Business History in Latin America: The Experience of Seven Countries (Liverpool University Press, 1999) online
Miller, Rory. Britain and Latin America in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Longman, 1993)
Bayly, C. A. ed. Atlas of the British Empire (1989). survey by scholars; heavily illustrated
Brendon, Piers. "A Moral Audit of the British Empire." History Today, (Oct 2007), Vol. 57 Issue 10, pp 44–47, online
Brendon, Piers. The Decline and Fall of the British Empire, 1781-1997 (2008), wide-ranging survey
Colley, Linda. Captives: Britain, Empire, and the World, 1600-1850 (2004), 464pp
Dalziel, Nigel. The Penguin Historical Atlas of the British Empire (2006), 144 pp
Darwin, John. The Empire Project: The Rise and Fall of the British World-System, 1830-1970 (2009) excerpt and text search
Darwin, John. Unfinished Empire: The Global Expansion of Britain (2013)
Ferguson, Niall. Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power (2002)
Gallagher, John, and Ronald Robinson. "The Imperialism of Free Trade" Economic History Review (1953) 6#1 pp: 1-15. Highly influential argument that British merchants and financiers imposed an economic imperialism without political control. in JSTOR
Hyam, Ronald. Britain's Imperial Century, 1815-1914: A Study of Empire and Expansion (1993).
James, Lawrence. The Rise and Fall of the British Empire (1997), very highly regarded survey.
Judd, Denis. Empire: The British Imperial Experience, From 1765 to the Present (1996). online edition
Lloyd; T. O. The British Empire, 1558-1995 Oxford University Press, 1996 online edition
Louis, William. Roger (general editor), The Oxford History of the British Empire, 5 vols. (1998–99).
vol 1 "The Origins of Empire" ed. by Nicholas Canny
Hutton, Patrick H. ed. Historical Dictionary of the Third French Republic, 1870–1940 (2 vol 1986)
Northcutt, Wayne, ed. Historical Dictionary of the French Fourth and Fifth Republics, 1946- 1991 (1992)
Aldrich, Robert. Greater France: A History of French Overseas Expansion (1996)
Betts, Raymond. Assimilation and Association in French Colonial Theory, 1890–1914 (2005) excerpt and text search
Clayton, Anthony. The Wars of French Decolonization (1995)
Newbury, C. W.; Kanya-Forstner, A. S. (1969). "French Policy and the Origins of the Scramble for West Africa". The Journal of African History. 10 (2): 253–276. doi:10.1017/s0021853700009518. S2CID162656377..
Roberts, Stephen H. History of French Colonial Policy (1870-1925) (2 vol 1929) vol 1 online also vol 2 online; Comprehensive scholarly history
Rosenblum, Mort. Mission to Civilize: The French Way (1986) online review
Priestley, Herbert Ingram. (1938) France overseas;: A study of modern imperialism 463pp; encyclopedic coverage as of late 1930s
Thomas, Martin. The French Empire Between the Wars: Imperialism, Politics and Society (2007) 1919–1939
Thompson, Virginia, and Richard Adloff. French West Africa (Stanford University Press, 1958)
Decolonization
Lawrence, Adria K. Imperial Rule and the Politics of Nationalism: Anti-Colonial Protest in the French Empire (Cambridge UP, 2013) online reviews
Rothermund, Dietmar. Memories of Post-Imperial Nations: The Aftermath of Decolonization, 1945-2013 (2015) excerpt; Compares the impact on Great Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Portugal, Italy and Japan
Sanders, David. Losing an Empire, Finding a Role: British Foreign Policy Since 1945 (1990) broad coverage of all topics in British foreign policy
Simpson, Alfred William Brian. Human Rights and the End of Empire: Britain and the Genesis of the European Convention (Oxford University Press, 2004).
Smith, Tony. "A comparative study of French and British decolonization." Comparative Studies in Society and History (1978) 20#1 pp: 70-102. online
Thomas, Martin, Bob Moore, and Lawrence J. Butler. Crises of Empire: Decolonization and Europe's imperial states (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015)
Primary sources
Page, Melvin E. ed. Colonialism: An International Social, Cultural, and Political Encyclopedia (3 vol. 2003); vol. 3 consists of primary documents
