Empire and Race

By the time of Queen Victoria’s death Britain would rule directly over a quarter of the world’s population and nearly one quarter of its land surface. This section demonstrates the historical circumstances and ideological issues which underpinned Victorian notions of Britain’s global sovereignty, and which fed into this period of unparalleled overseas expansion. But in so doing it foregrounds the various and manifold problems, disputes and controversies which characterized debates over how the British should best conceive of their nation’s imperial status, and how they should think about the way in which their programmes of overseas expansion would affect those peoples they considered — for differing reasons and to differing extents — racially inferior.