Evaluating Empire and Confronting Colonialism in Eighteenth-Century Britain Britai

"Jack Greene's Evaluating Empire is the best study of critiques of British colonization in North America, the West Indies, Ireland, and India. He shows that many Britons used Enlightenment values of justice, humanity, and liberty to confront their compatriots' triumphalism about commerce and power after the Seven Years' War." - John E. Crowley, Dalhousie University "Jack P. Greene demonstrates magisterially how the current debate on whether the British Empire was a force for good or ill began in the eighteenth century. Citing a vast range of writings he analyzes their use of different 'languages' favorable or unfavorable to imperial projects in America, India, and Ireland. This novel approach convincingly establishes that colonialism was generally applauded until 1763 but thereafter was challenged by an increasing chorus of criticism." - William A. Speck, Emeritus Professor of History, University of Leeds "Whether dissecting the language of imperial grandeur or pondering critiques of imperial excess, Jack Greene has provided us with a riveting new guide to Hanoverian thinking about empire. He establishes, richly and persuasively, that when mid-to-late eighteenth-century Britons looked overseas, west or east, they saw colonialism, with all its antinomies and cruelties, some hundred years before the word was even invented. Required reading for all scholars and students of early modern empires and their afterlives." - Kathleen Wilson, State University of New York, Stony Brook