Islands and the British Empire in the Age of Sail – Ebook Instant Download/Delivery ISBN(s): 9780198847229,019884722X, 9780192586551, 0192586556

Product details:

• ISBN-10: 0192586556
• ISBN-13: 9780192586551
• Author:  Douglas Hamilton, John McAleer

Islands are not just geographical units or physical facts; their importance and significance arise from the human activities associated with them. The maritime routes of sailing ships, the victualling requirements of their sailors, and the strategic demands of seaborne empires in the age of sail – as well as their intrinsic value as sources of rare commodities – meant that islands across the globe played prominent parts in imperial consolidation and expansion. This volume examines the various ways in which islands (and groups of islands) contributed to the establishment, extension, and maintenance of the British Empire in the age of sail. Thematically related chapters explore the geographical, topographical, economic, and social diversity of the islands that comprised a large component of the British Empire in an era of rapid and significant expansion. Although many of these islands were isolated rocky outcrops, they acted as crucial nodal points, providing critical assistance for ships and men embarked on the long-distance voyages that characterised British overseas activities in the period. Intercontinental maritime trade, colonial settlement, and scientific exploration and experimentation would have been impossible without these oceanic islands. They also acted as sites of strategic competition, contestation, and conflict for rival European powers keen to outstrip each other in developing and maintaining overseas markets, plantations, and settlements. The importance of islands outstripped their physical size, the populations they sustained, or their individual economic contribution to the imperial balance sheet.

Table contents:

1. Introduction: Islands and the British Empire in the Age of Sail

2. Islands, Voyaging and Empires in the Age of Sail

3. Britain’s European Island-Empire, 1793–1815

4. Islands of Settlement: Britain’s Western North Atlantic Islands in the Age of Sail, 1497–1835

5. ‘Sailing on the same uncertain sea’: The Windward Islands of the Caribbean

6. The Route to the East: Atlantic Islands and Britain’s Maritime Empire

7. Britain’s Western Indian Ocean Island-Scape

8. Islands and the Age of Revolutions in the Indian and Pacific Oceans

9. Empire in Oceania: Knowing the Sea of Islands

10. Islands of Incarceration and Empire Building in Colonial Australia

11. Afterword. Islands and the British Empire: From the Age of Sail to the Age of Steam

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