British Empire Wars

1879. The British Empire marches into Zululand, and disaster. Newly commissioned and untested, Second Lieutenant William Blackwood arrives from Monmouthshire to the wild frontier of South Africa, as Her Majesty’s forces prepare to crush the Zulu Kingdom. For Blackwood, it is meant to be the beginning of a proud military career: clean uniforms, sharp commands, and the steady march of empire. Instead, he finds confusion, chaos, and the first bitter lessons of war. Tasked with reinforcing a remote column of British and colonial troops, Blackwood is plunged into a campaign of dust-choked ...

October 6, 1879. The roar of guns and the shout of men reached a heightened pitch as the Highlanders and Gurkhas crested the ridgeline and attacked the Afghani trenches. Khaki and green uniforms mixed with the scarlet of the Afghans as the battle sea-sawed for a few minutes. Then the line of scarlet-clad Afghani troops wavered and broke. British Army lieutenant Robert Burton watched as thousands of Afghani troops fled in headlong retreat. The British had seized the first line. The Road to Kandahar is an historical fiction novel about a forgotten period of history when Britain and Russia ...

Were World Wars I and II–which can now be seen as a thirty-year paroxysm of slaughter and destruction–inevitable? Were they necessary wars? Were the bloodiest and most devastating conflicts ever suffered by mankind fated by forces beyond man’s control? Or were they products of calamitous...

In this vivid and compelling narrative, the Seven Years' War - long seen as a mere backdrop to the American Revolution - takes on a whole new significance. Relating the history of the war as it developed, Anderson shows how the complex array of forces brought into conflict helped both to create Britain's empire and to sow the seeds of its eventual dissolution. Beginning with a skirmish in the Pennsylvania backcountry involving an inexperienced George Washington, the Iroquois chief Tanaghrisson, and the ill-fated French emissary Jumonville, Anderson reveals a chain of events that would lead to world conflagration.

The Great Boer War (1899-1902) - more properly the Great Anglo-Boer War - was one of the last romantic wars, pitting a sturdy, stubborn pioneer people fighting to establish the independence of their tiny nation against the British Empire at its peak of power and self-confidence. It was fought in the barren vastness of the South African veldt, and it produced in almost equal measure extraordinary feats of personal heroism, unbelievable examples of folly and stupidity, and many incidents of humor and tragedy.

The monumental struggle fought against Imperial Japan in the Asia/Pacific theater during World War II is primarily viewed as an American affair. While the United States did play a dominant role, the British and Commonwealth forces also made major contributions. It was a difficult and often desperate conflict fought against a skilled and ruthless enemy that initially saw the British suffer the worst series of defeats ever to befall their armed forces.

An “enthralling and authoritative” (The Wall Street Journal) political history of World War II that opens a window onto the difficulties of holding together the coalition that ultimately defeated Hitler—by the acclaimed author of Appeasement “A fine reassessment of Allied politics and...

In the Age of Exploration, the British began building an enormous and highly profitable foreign empire. While the British Empire initially lagged behind other European powers such as Spain and Portugal, it still managed to colonize the New World and discover highly-lucrative trade routes.

Before the trenches of 1914 or the battles of the 1940s, there was a war that set the entire globe ablaze. This conflict, fought from 1754 to 1763, was the true first world war, a brutal contest for imperial domination that stretched from the wilderness of Pennsylvania to the palaces of India. It was here that the modern world was forged in a crucible of ambition, finance, and gunpowder. This single, sprawling conflict saw French and British regulars clash on the Plains of Abraham in Quebec, while Robert Clive's corporate mercenaries engineered a coup in Bengal. It was a war for the sugar-...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER An “outstanding new intellectual biography of John Maynard Keynes [that moves] swiftly along currents of lucidity and wit” (The New York Times), illuminating the world of the influential economist and his transformative ideas “A timely, lucid and compelling...

It is the war that has been forgotten, yet it defined a continent. While Great Britain was locked in a life-or-death struggle with Napoleon, the young United States saw an opportunity to strike, launching an ambitious invasion to conquer Canada. What followed was a brutal, chaotic, and transformative conflict that pitted veteran redcoats against frontier militia, Indigenous confederacies against professional armies, and legendary frigates against the masters of the sea. This book tells the full story of that desperate war, from the humiliating failures at Detroit to the bloody, professional...

AN ECONOMIST AND NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR A fresh, exciting, “readable and informative” history (The New York Times) of seventeenth-century England, a time of revolution when society was on fire and simultaneously forging the modern world. “Recapture[s] a lost moment when...

June 1879. The Zulu Kingdom stands defiant, and Lord Chelmsford’s redcoats march for its heart. The campaign nears its climax, and the British forces gather their strength for the final advance on Ulundi. After months of marching, building, and battle, Lieutenant William Blackwood and the Monmouthshire Fusiliers push east through the wild country of the White Mfolozi. Behind them lie the forts they have built and the comrades they have buried; ahead, the capital of the Zulu kingdom and the promise of victory hard-won. Ordered to join Lord Chelmsford’s main column in the drive toward ...

This is the history of the world, in summarized form. Learn how the major figures, events, and ages of history connect without detail-overload. Spanning from the beginning of the Universe to the Space Age, and even predictions of the future, this is the shortest history book you will ever read.

March 1879. Zululand burns, and the fate of the frontier will be decided on the blood-red heights of Kambula. Second Lieutenant William Blackwood, marches north with the Monmouthshire Fusiliers as Her Majesty’s forces prepare to strike a hammer blow against the enemy. Assigned to Colonel Evelyn Wood’s elite flying column on the untamed frontier, Blackwood is swept into a relentless campaign of raids, skirmishes, and mountain warfare. Here, loyalty is measured in blood, and every patrol could be a man’s last. From the shattered ridges of Hlobane to the storm-wracked heights of Kambula,...

Here is the story of how the English acquired their vast domain; how they ruled, maintained, and exploited it; and how, within decades, they presided over its dissolution. Here are Britain's triumphs and also her stinging defeats, her heroes and her scoundrels. It is a full and fascinating chronicle of the growth of the British Empire and its people and of the impact that empire had on the rest of the world.

This book presents a comprehensive history of the existential war waged between the Anglo-Dutch imperial system and what became known as the American System of political economy ever since the creation of the predatory British and Dutch East India Companies. On that basis, the book presents a counterintuitive solution to the crisis confronting humanity today, arguing that only a combination of the Four Powers, the USA, Russia, China and India, has the power to finally dismantle the Anglo-Dutch imperial system as it emerged from the British and Dutch East India Companies. The book documents ...

The English-speaking peoples comprise perhaps the greatest number of human beings sharing a common language in the world today. These people also share a common heritage. For his four-volume work, Sir Winston Churchill took as his subject these great elements in world history. Volume 1 commences in 55BC, when Julius Caesar famously "turned his gaze upon Britain" and concludes with the Battle of Bosworth in 1485.

Coa, who was born feral in the North Transatlantic wilds, has just been captured. Now, Coa is subject to public humiliation and execution in a gruesome spectacle known as The Great Hunt. If participants die in the Great Hunt, their entire family will be executed—in front of everyone. The nationalist regime, known as the Allied Force, will not rest until all foreigners are exterminated. Coa’s best hope of survival might be Princess Ife—born of privilege, but newly married into the authoritarian lineage.

A riveting account of the five heated months in which King Charles I attempted to arrest five dissident Members of Parliament by bringing an armed force to the House of Commons—a shocking act of political terrorism that pushed England toward civil war and planted the seeds of the American...