Arms of England

The English colonial empire comprised a variety of overseas territories colonized, conquered, or otherwise acquired by the former Kingdom of England between the late 16th and early 18th centuries.

The first English overseas settlements were established in Ireland, quickly followed by North America, Bermuda and the West Indies and by trading posts called "factories" in the East Indies, such as Bantam, and in the Indian subcontinent, beginning with Surat. In 1639, a series of English fortresses on the Indian coast was initiated with Fort St George. In 1661, the marriage of King Charles II to Catherine of Braganza brought him as part of her dowry new possessions which had been Portuguese, including Tangier in North Africa and Bombay in India.

In North America, Virginia and Newfoundland were the first centres of English colonization. As the 17th century wore on, Maine, New Hampshire, Salem, Massachusetts Bay, New Scotland, Connecticut, Maryland, and Rhode Island and Providence, were settled. In 1664, New Netherland and New Sweden were taken from the Dutch, becoming New York, New Jersey, and parts of Delaware and Pennsylvania.

In 1707, when England was united with Scotland to form the new state of Great Britain, the English colonies became the foundation of the British Empire.

Origins[link]

A replica of Cabot's ship, the Matthew

The Voyages of Christopher Columbus began in 1492, and he sighted land in the West Indies on 12 October that year. In 1496, excited by the successes in overseas exploration of the Spanish and the Portuguese, King Henry VII of England commissioned John Cabot to lead a voyage to find a route from the Atlantic to the Spice Islands of Asia, subsequently known as the search for the North West Passage. Cabot sailed in 1497, successfully making landfall on the coast of Newfoundland. There, he believed he had reached Asia and made no attempt to found a permanent colony.^[1] He led another voyage to the Americas the following year, but nothing was heard of him or his ships again.^[2]

The Protestant Reformation had made enemies of England and Spain, and in 1562 Elizabeth sanctioned the privateers Hawkins and Drake to attack Spanish ships off the coast of West Africa.^[3] Later, as the Anglo-Spanish Wars intensified, Elizabeth approved further raids against Spanish ports in the Americas and against shipping returning to Europe with treasure from the New World.^[4] Meanwhile, the influential writers Richard Hakluyt and John Dee were beginning to press for the establishment of England's own overseas empire. Spain was well established in the Americas, while Portugal had built up a network of trading posts and fortresses on the coasts of Africa, Brazil, and China, and the French had already begun to settle the Saint Lawrence River, which later became New France.^[5]

The first English overseas colonies[link]

The first serious attempts to establish English colonies overseas were made in the last quarter of the 16th century, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.^[6] Soon there was an explosion of English colonial activity, driven by men seeking new land, by the pursuit of trade, and by the search for religious freedom. At first, the destination of most English people making a new life overseas was in the West Indies rather than in North America.

Queen Elizabeth

Early claims[link]

Financed by the Muscovy Company, Martin Frobisher set sail on 7 June 1576, from Blackwall, London, seeking the North West Passage. In August 1576 he landed at Frobisher Bay on Baffin Island and this was marked by the first Church of England service recorded on North American soil. Frobisher returned to Frobisher Bay in 1577, solemnly taking possession of the south side of it in Queen Elizabeth's name. In a third voyage, in 1578, he reached the shores of Greenland and also made an unsuccessful attempt at founding a settlement in Frobisher Bay.^[7][8] While on the coast of Greenland, he also claimed that for England.^[9]

At the same time, between 1577 and 1580, Sir Francis Drake was circumnavigating the globe. He claimed Elizabeth Island off Cape Horn for his queen, and on 24 August 1578 claimed another Elizabeth Island, in the Straits of Magellan.^[10] In 1579 he landed somewhere on the western coast of North America, claiming the area for Elizabeth as "New Albion". However, these claims were not followed up by settlements.^[11]

In 1578, while Drake was away on his circumnavigation, Queen Elizabeth granted a patent for overseas exploration to his half-brother Humphrey Gilbert, and that year Gilbert sailed for the West Indies to engage in piracy and to establish a colony in North America. However, the expedition was abandoned before the Atlantic had been crossed. In 1583, Gilbert sailed to Newfoundland, where in a formal ceremony he took possession of the harbour of St John's together with all land within two hundred leagues to the north and south of it, although he left no settlers behind him. He did not survive the return journey to England.^[12][13]

The first overseas settlements[link]

Re-enactment of English settlers arriving in Virginia, 1607

On 25 March 1584, Queen Elizabeth I (the "Virgin Queen") granted Sir Walter Raleigh a charter for the colonization of an area of North America which was to be called, in her honour, Virginia. This charter specified that Raleigh had seven years in which to establish a settlement, or else lose his right to do so. Raleigh and Elizabeth intended that the venture should provide riches from the New World and a base from which to send privateers on raids against the treasure fleets of Spain. Raleigh himself never visited North America, although he led expeditions in 1595 and 1617 to the Orinoco River basin in South America in search of the golden city of El Dorado. Instead, he sent others to found the Roanoke Colony, later known as the "Lost Colony".^[14]

On 31 December 1600, Elizabeth gave a charter to the East India Company, under the name "The Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East Indies".^[15] The Company established trading posts, which in later centuries evolved into British India, on the coasts of what is now India and Bangladesh.

Most of the new English colonies established in North America and the West Indies, whether successfully or otherwise, were proprietary colonies with Proprietors, appointed to found and govern settlements under mercantile charters granted to joint stock companies. Early examples of these are the Virginia Company, which created the first successful English overseas settlements at Jamestown in 1607 and Bermuda, unofficially in 1609 and officially in 1612, its spin-off, the Somers Isles Company, to which Bermuda (also known as the Somers Isles) was transferred in 1615, and the Newfoundland Company which settled Cuper's Cove near St. John's, Newfoundland in 1610. Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts Bay were also charter colonies.

Bermuda, today the oldest-remaining British Overseas Territory, was settled and claimed by England as a result of the 1609 shipwreck there of the Viginia Company's flagship. St. George's town, founded in Bermuda in 1612, remains the oldest continuously-inhabited English settlement in the New World (with some historians stating that - its formation predating the 1619 conversion of ´´James Fort´´ into ´´Jamestown´´ - St. George´s was actually the first successful town the English established in the New World). Bermuda and Bermudians have played important, sometimes pivotal, but generally underestimated or unacknowledged roles in the shaping of the English and British trans-Atlantic Empires. These include maritime commerce, settlement of the continent and of the West Indies, and the projection of naval power via the colony´s privateers, among other areas.^[16][17][18]

Between 1640 and 1660, the West Indies were the destination of more than two-thirds of English emigrants to the New World. By 1650, there were 44,000 English people in the Caribbean, compared to 12,000 on the Chesapeake and 23,000 in New England.^{[citation needed]} The most substantial English settlement in that period was at Barbados.

In 1660, King Charles II established the Royal African Company, essentially a trading company dealing in slaves, led by his brother James, Duke of York. In 1661, Charles's marriage to the Portuguese princess Catherine of Braganza brought him the ports of Tangier in Africa and Bombay in India as part of her dowry. Tangier proved very expensive to hold and was abandoned in 1684.^[19]

After the Dutch surrender of Fort Amsterdam to English control in 1664, England took over the Dutch colony of New Netherland, including New Amsterdam. Formalized in 1667, this contributed to the Second Anglo–Dutch War. In 1664, New Netherland was renamed the Province of New York. At the same time, the English also came to control the former New Sweden, in the present-day US State of Delaware, which had also been a Dutch possession and later became part of Pennsylvania. In 1673, the Dutch regained New Netherland, but they gave it up again under the Treaty of Westminster of 1674.

Council of Trade and Foreign Plantations[link]

In 1621, following a downturn in overseas trade which had created financial problems for the Exchequer, King James instructed his Privy Council to establish an ad hoc committee of inquiry to look into the causes of the decline. This was called The Lords of the Committee of the Privy Council appointed for the consideration of all matters relating to Trade and Foreign Plantations. Intended to be a temporary creation, the committee, later called a 'Council', became the origin of the Board of Trade which has had an almost continuous existence since 1621. The Committee quickly took a hand in promoting the more profitable enterprises of the English possessions, and in particular the production of tobacco and sugar.^[20]

List of English possessions in North America[link]

Captain John Smith, 'Admiral of New England'

• St John's, Newfoundland, chartered in 1583 by Sir Humphrey Gilbert, was seasonally settled ca. 1520^[21] and had settlers who remained all year round by 1620.^[22][23]
• Roanoke Colony, in present-day North Carolina, was first founded in 1586 but was abandoned the next year. In 1587 a second attempt was made at establishing a settlement, but the colonists disappeared, leading to the name of the 'Lost Colony'. One of those lost was Virginia Dare.
• At Cuttyhunk, one of the Elizabeth Islands (named after Queen Elizabeth I) of present-day Massachusetts, a small fort and trading post was established by Bartholomew Gosnold in 1602, but the island was abandoned after only one month.
• The Virginia Company was chartered in 1606, and in 1624 its concessions became the royal colony of Virginia
  • Jamestown, Virginia, was founded by the Virginia Company of London in 1607.
  • Bermuda, also known as the Somers Isles, lying in the North Atlantic, were accidentally settled by the London Virginia Company in 1609, due to the wrecking of the company's ship Sea Venture; in 1615 its administration passed to the Somers Isles Company, which was formed by the same shareholders.
  • Henricus, also called Henricopolis, Henrico Town and Henrico, was founded by the London Virginia Company in 1611 as an alternative to the swampy Jamestown, but it was largely destroyed in the Indian massacre of 1622.
  • Popham Colony: on 13 August 1607, the Virginia Company of Plymouth settled the Popham Colony along the Kennebec River in present-day Maine. The company had a licence to establish settlements between the 38th parallel (the upper reaches of the Chesapeake Bay) and the 45th parallel (near the current US border with Canada). However, Popham was abandoned after about a year, and the Company then became inactive.

Plaque at St John's marking Sir Humphrey Gilbert's landing there in 1583

• The Society of Merchant Venturers of Bristol began to settle Newfoundland
  • Cuper's Cove, founded in 1610, was abandoned in the 1620s
  • Bristol's Hope, founded in 1618, was abandoned in the 1630s
• London and Bristol Company (Newfoundland)
  • Cambriol, founded in 1617. In 1616 Sir William Vaughan (1575–1641) bought from the Newfoundland Company all that land on the Avalon Peninsula located south of a line drawn from Caplin Bay (now Calvert) to Placentia Bay. The colony had been abandoned by 1637.
  • Renews, founded in 1615, abandoned in 1619^[24]
• Plymouth Council for New England
  • Plymouth Colony, founded 1620, merged with Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1691
• Ferryland, Newfoundland granted to George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore in 1620, first settlers in August 1621^[25]
• Province of Maine, granted 1622, sold to Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1677
• South Falkland, Newfoundland, founded 1623 by Henry Cary, 1st Viscount Falkland
• Province of New Hampshire, later New Hampshire settled in 1623, see also New Hampshire Grants
• Cape Ann was an unsuccessful fishing colony settled in 1624 by the Dorchester Company.
• Salem Colony, settled in 1628, merged with the Massachusetts Bay Colony the next year
• Massachusetts Bay Colony, later part of Massachusetts, founded in 1629
• New Scotland, in present Nova Scotia, 1629–1632
• Connecticut Colony, later part of Connecticut, founded in 1633
• Province of Maryland, later Maryland, founded in 1634
• Province of New Albion, chartered in 1634, but had failed by 1649-50.
• Saybrook Colony, founded in 1635, merged with Connecticut in 1644
• Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, first settled in 1636
• New Haven Colony, founded 1638, merged with Connecticut in 1665
• Gardiners Island, founded 1639, now part of East Hampton, New York
• The New England Confederation, formally the 'United Colonies of New England', was a short-lived military alliance of the English colonies of Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven, established in 1643, aiming to unite the Puritan colonies against the Native Americans. Its charter provided for the return of fugitive criminals and indentured servants.^[26]
• Province of New York, captured from the Dutch in 1664
• Province of New Jersey, also captured in 1664
  • Was divided into West Jersey and East Jersey after 1674, each held by its own company of Proprietors.
• Rupert's Land, named in honour of Prince Rupert of the Rhine, the cousin of King Charles II. In 1668, Rupert commissioned two ships, the Nonsuch and the Eaglet, to explore possible trade into Hudson Bay. The Nonsuch founded Fort Rupert at the mouth of the Rupert River. Prince Rupert became the first governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, which was established in 1670.
• Province of Pennsylvania, later Pennsylvania, founded in 1681 as an English colony, although first settled by the Dutch and the Swedes
• Delaware Colony, later Delaware, separated from Pennsylvania in 1704
• Province of Carolina, established as a single territory but soon functioning in practice as two separate colonies:
  • North Carolina, first settled at Roanoke in 1586, became a separate British colony in 1710
  • Province of South Carolina, first permanently settled in 1670, became a separate British colony in 1710.
• Province of Georgia, later Georgia; first settled in about 1670.

List of English possessions in the West Indies[link]

• Barbados, settled by England about 1622, was the third major English settlement in the Americas, after Jamestown and the Plymouth Colony.
• Saint Kitts, settled by the English in 1623, followed by the French in 1625. The English and French united to massacre the local Kalinago, preempting a Kalinago plan to massacre the Europeans, and then partitioned the island, with the English in the middle and the French at either end. In 1629 a Spanish force seized St Kitts, but the English settlement was rebuilt following the peace between England and Spain in 1630. The island then alternated between English and French control during the 17th and 18th centuries.
• Nevis, settled 1628
• Providencia Island, settled by the Providence Island Company in 1629 and captured by Spain in 1641.
• Montserrat, settled 1632
• Antigua, settled in 1632 by a group of English colonists from Saint Kitts
• The Bahamas were mostly deserted from 1513 to 1648, when the Eleutheran Adventurers left Bermuda to settle on the island of Eleuthera.
• Anguilla, first colonised by English settlers from St Kitts in 1650; the French gained the island in 1666, but under the Treaty of Breda of 1667 it was returned to England
• Jamaica, formerly a Spanish possession known as Santiago, it was conquered by the English in 1655.
• Barbuda, first settled by the Spanish and French, was colonized by the English in 1666.
• The Cayman Islands were visited by Sir Francis Drake in 1586, who named them. They were largely uninhabited until the 17th century, when they were informally settled by pirates, refugees from the Spanish Inquisition, shipwrecked sailors, and deserters from Oliver Cromwell's army in Jamaica. England gained control of the islands, together with Jamaica, under the Treaty of Madrid of 1670.

List of English possessions in India and the East Indies[link]

Fort St George, Madras, the first English fortress in India

• Bantam: The English started to sail to the East Indies about the year 1600 and in 1603 established a permanent "factory" at Bantam on the island of Java. At first the factory was headed by a Chief Factor, from 1617 by a President, from 1630 by Agents and from 1634 to 1652 by Presidents again. The factory then declined.
• Surat: The East India Company's traders settled at Surat in 1608, followed by the Dutch in 1617. Surat was the first headquarters town of the East India Company, but in 1687 it transferred its command centre to Bombay.
• Machilipatnam: a trading factory was established here on the Coromandel Coast of India in 1611, at first reporting to Bantam.^[27]
• Run, a spice island in the East Indies. On 25 December 1616, Nathaniel Courthope landed on Run to defend it against the claims of the Dutch East India Company and the inhabitants accepted James I as sovereign of the island. After four years of siege by the Dutch and the death of Courthope in 1620, the English left. According to the Treaty of Westminster of 1654, Run should have been returned to England, but was not. After the Second Anglo-Dutch War, England and the United Provinces agreed to the status quo, under which the English kept Manhattan, which the Duke of York had occupied in 1664, while in return Run was formally abandoned to the Dutch. In 1665 the English traders were expelled.
• Fort St George, at Madras (Chennai), was the first English fortress in India, founded in 1639. George Town was the accompanying civilian settlement.
• Bombay: On 11 May 1661, the marriage treaty of King Charles II and Catherine of Braganza, daughter of King John IV of Portugal, transferred Bombay into the possession of England, as part of Catherine's dowry.^[28] However, the Portuguese kept several neighbouring islands. Between 1665 and 1666, the English acquired Mahim, Sion, Dharavi, and Wadala.^[29] These islands were leased to the East India Company in 1668. The population quickly rose from 10,000 in 1661, to 60,000 in 1675.^[30] In 1687, the East India Company transferred its headquarters from Surat to Bombay, and the city eventually became the headquarters of the Bombay Presidency.^[31]
• Bencoolen was an East India Company pepper-trading centre with a garrison on the coast of the island of Sumatra, established in 1685.
• Calcutta on the Hooghly River in Bengal was settled by the East India Company in 1690.

English possessions in Central and South America[link]

• Elizabeth Island off Cape Horn, and another Elizabeth Island in the Straits of Magellan, were claimed for England by Sir Francis Drake in August 1578.^[10] However, no settlements were made and it is no longer possible to identify the islands with certainty.
• Guiana: an attempt in 1604 to establish a colony failed in its main objective to find gold and lasted only two years.^[32]
• Mosquito Coast: the Providence Island Company occupied a small part of this area in the 17th century.

English possessions in Africa[link]

A map of James Island and Fort Gambia.

• The Gambia River: in 1588, António, Prior of Crato, claimant to the Portuguese throne, sold exclusive trade rights on the Gambia River to English merchants, and Queen Elizabeth I confirmed his grant by letters patent. In 1618, King James I granted a charter to an English company for trade with The Gambia and the Gold Coast. The English captured Fort Gambia from the Dutch in 1661, who ceded it in 1664. The island on which the Fort stood was renamed James Island, and the fort Fort James, after James, Duke of York, later King James II. At first the chartered Company of Royal Adventurers in Africa administered the territory, which traded in gold, ivory, and slaves. In 1684, the Royal African Company took over the administration.
• English Tangier: this was another English possession gained by King Charles II in 1661 as part of the dowry of Catherine of Braganza. While it was strategically important, Tangier proved very expensive to hold and was abandoned in 1684.^[19]
• St Helena since 1659 (note - Ascension and Tristan da Cunha were settled latter).

Transformation into British Empire[link]

The Treaty of Union of 1706, which with effect from 1707 combined England and Scotland into a new sovereign state called Great Britain, provided for the subjects of the new state to "have full freedom and intercourse of trade and navigation to and from any port or place within the said united kingdom and the Dominions and Plantations thereunto belonging". While the Treaty of Union also provided for the winding up of the Scottish African and Indian Company, it made no such provision for the English companies or colonies. In effect, with the Union they became British colonies.^[33]

Former English colonies which remain as British Overseas Territories[link]

North America

• Bermuda
• Turks and Caicos
• Cayman Islands

Africa

• St Helena (excluding Ascension Island and Tristan da Cunha )

See also[link]

• Historiography of the British Empire
• Plantations of Ireland
• Scottish colonization of the Americas
• Thirteen Colonies

Notes[link]

Further reading[link]

• Adams, James Truslow, The Founding of New England (1921), to 1690
• Andrews, Charles M., The Colonial Period of American History (4 vols. 1934-38), the standard political overview to 1700
• Andrews, Charles M., Colonial Self-Government, 1652-1689 (1904) full text online
• Bayly, C. A. ed., Atlas of the British Empire (1989), survey by scholars, heavily illustrated
• Black, Jeremy, The British Seaborne Empire (2004)
• Coelho, Philip R. P. "The Profitability of Imperialism: The British Experience in the West Indies 1768-1772," Explorations in Economic History, July 1973, Vol. 10 Issue 3, pp 253–280
• Dalziel, Nigel, The Penguin Historical Atlas of the British Empire (2006), 144 pp
• Doyle, John Andrew, English Colonies in America: Virginia, Maryland and the Carolinas (1882) online edition
• Doyle, John Andrew, English Colonies in America: The Puritan colonies (1889) online edition
• Doyle, John Andrew, The English in America: The colonies under the House of Hanover (1907) online edition
• Ferguson, Niall, Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power (2002)
• Fishkin, Rebecca Love, English Colonies in America (2008)
• Foley, Arthur, The Early English Colonies (Sadler Phillips, 2010)
• Gipson, Lawrence. The British Empire Before the American Revolution (15 vol 1936-70), comprehensive scholarly overview
  • Morris, Richard B. "The Spacious Empire of Lawrence Henry Gipson," William and Mary Quarterly Vol. 24, No. 2 (Apr., 1967), pp. 169-189 in JSTOR
• Green, William A. "Caribbean Historiography, 1600-1900: The Recent Tide," Journal of Interdisciplinary History Vol. 7, No. 3 (Winter, 1977), pp. 509-530 in JSTOR
• Greene, Jack P. Peripheries & Center: Constitutional Development in the Extended Polities of the British Empire & the United States, 1607-1788 (1986), 274pp
• James, Lawrence, The Rise and Fall of the British Empire (1997)
• Jernegan, Marcus Wilson, The American Colonies, 1492-1750 (1959)
• Koot, Christian J. Empire at the Periphery: British Colonists, Anglo-Dutch Trade, and the Development of the British Atlantic, 1621-1713 (2011)
• Knorr, Klaus E., British Colonial Theories 1570–1850 (1944)
• Louis, William, Roger (general editor), The Oxford History of the British Empire, 5 vols (1998–99), vol. 1 "The Origins of Empire" ed. Nicholas Canny (1998)
• McDermott, James, Martin Frobisher: Elizabethan privateer (Yale University Press, 2001)
• Marshall, P. J., ed., The Cambridge Illustrated History of the British Empire (1996)
• O'Shaughnessy, Andrew Jackson, Empire Divided: The American Revolution & the British Caribbean (2000) 357pp
• Parker, Lewis K., English Colonies in the Americas (2003)
• Payne, Edward John, Voyages of the Elizabethan Seamen to America (vol. 1, 1893; vol. 2, 1900)
• Payne, Edward John, History of the New World called America (vol. 1, 1892; vol. 2, 1899)
• Quinn, David B., Set Fair for Roanoke: voyages and colonies, 1584-1606 (1985)
• Rose, J. Holland, A. P. Newton and E. A. Benians, gen. eds., The Cambridge History of the British Empire, 9 vols (1929–61); vol 1: "The Old Empire from the Beginnings to 1783" (online edition)
• Sheridan, Richard B. "The Plantation Revolution and the Industrial Revolution, 1625-1775," Caribbean Studies Vol. 9, No. 3 (Oct., 1969), pp. 5-25 in JSTOR
• Sitwell, Sidney Mary, Growth of the English Colonies (new ed. 2010)
• Thomas, Robert Paul. "The Sugar Colonies of the Old Empire: Profit or Loss for Great Britain," Economic History Review, April 1968, Vol. 21 Issue 1, pp 30-45

Primary sources[link]

• Nathaniel Crouch, The English Empire in America: or a Prospect of His Majesties Dominions in the West-Indies (London, 1685)

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Regions that belonged once to a colonial empire. (animated map, 1492 to present)

The Colonial empires were a product of the European Age of Exploration (or Age of Sail) that began with a race of exploration between the then most advanced maritime powers, Portugal and Spain, in the 15th century. The initial impulse behind these dispersed maritime empires and those that followed was trade, driven by the new ideas and the capitalism that grew out of the European Renaissance. Agreements were also done to divide the world up between them in 1479, 1493, and 1494.

Portugal began establishing the first global trade network and empire under the leadership of Henry the Navigator. Portugal would eventually establish colonial domains from Brazil, in South America, to several colonies in Africa (namely Portuguese Guinea, Cape Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe, Angola and Mozambique), in Portuguese India (most importantly Bombay and Goa), in China (Macau), and Oceania (most importantly Timor, namely East Timor), amongst many other smaller or short-lived possessions (see Evolution of the Portuguese Empire).

During its Siglo de Oro, the Spanish Empire had possession of the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium, most of Italy, parts of Germany, parts of France, and many colonies in the Americas, Africa, and Asia. With the conquest of inland Mexico, Peru, and the Philippines in the 16th century, Spain established overseas dominions on a scale and world distribution that had never been approached by its predecessors (the Mongol Empire had been larger but was restricted to Eurasia). Possessions in Europe, Africa, the Atlantic Ocean, the Americas, the Pacific Ocean, and the Far East qualified the Spanish Empire as attaining a global presence in this sense.

From 1580 to 1640 the Portuguese Empire and the Spanish Empire were conjoined in a personal union of its Habsburg monarchs during the period of the Iberian Union, but beneath the highest level of government, their separate administrations were maintained.

Subsequent colonial empires included the French, English, Dutch, and British empires. The last, consolidated during the period of British maritime hegemony in the 19th century, became the largest empire in history by virtue of the improved transportation technologies of the time. At its height, the British Empire covered a fifth of the Earth's land area and comprised a quarter of its population. By the mid 17th century, the Tsardom of Russia, continued later as Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, became the largest contiguous state in the world, and the modern Russian Federation continues to be so to this day. Despite having "lost" its Soviet periphery, Russia has 9 time zones, stretching for about a half the world's longitude.

List of colonial empires[link]

1. Portuguese Empire (1415 to 1999 - or present counting the Azores and Madeira island possessions)
   • Evolution of the Portuguese Empire
   • Portuguese colonization of the Americas
2. Spanish Empire (1492 to 1975)
   • Spanish colonization of the Americas
3. Russian empire (1580 to 1917)
   • Russian conquest of Siberia
   • Russian colonization of the Americas
4. Dutch Empire (1602 to 1975)
   • Dutch colonization of the Americas
5. French Empire (1605 to present)
   • The French colonial empire
   • The First French Empire of Napoleon I (1804–1814 or 1815)
   • The Second French Empire of Napoleon III (1852–1870)
   • The First and Second French Colonial Empire (1605–1962)
   • French colonization of the Americas
   • List of Colony and possessions of France
6. British Empire (1607 to present)
   1. Territories and mandates under Australian administration (1901 to 1975)^[1]
   2. Territories and mandates under New Zealand administration (1907 to present)^[2]
   3. Mandates under South African administration (1915 to 1990)^[3]
   • English colonial empire (1583 to 1707)
   • Evolution of the British Empire
   • British colonization of the Americas
   • Scottish colonization of the Americas
7. Danish colonial empire (1620 to 1953)
   • Danish colonization of the Americas
8. Courland colonization (vassal of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) (1637 to 1690)
   • Courish colonization of the Americas
9. Swedish colonial empire (1638 to 1663 and 1785 to 1878)
   • Swedish colonization of the Americas
10. German colonial initiatives (1683 to 1721, 1883 to 1919)
    • Colonies of Brandenburg-Prussia (1683–1721)^[4]
    • German colonial empire (1883 to 1919)
    • German colonization of the Americas
11. Habsburg Monarchy colonies (1719–1750, 1778–1783, 1901–1917)^[4]
12. Belgian colonial empire (1885 to 1962)
    • Congo Free State (1885 to 1908)
13. Italian Colonial Empire (1885 to 1943)
    • Italian colonization of the Americas
14. List of possessions of Norway
    • Norway Antarctic and sub-Antarctic possessions (1927 to 1957)^[5]
    • Norse colonization of the Americas

• 

  Portuguese Empire

• 

  Spanish Empire

• 

  Russian Empire

• 

  Dutch Empire

• 

  French Empire

• 

  British Empire

• 

  Danish Empire

• 

  Swedish Empire

• 

  German Empire

• 

  Belgian Empire

• Italy and Posessions September 1939.png

  Italian Empire

See also[link]

• Colonialism
• Western empires
• Islamic empire
• Global empire
• Great divergence
• European miracle
• The empire on which the sun never sets

Notes[link]

External links[link]

• Visualizing western empires decline

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Niall Ferguson
Niall Ferguson at the 40. St. Gallen Symposium in May 2010
Born	(1964-04-18) 18 April 1964 (age 48) Glasgow, Scotland
Nationality	British
Fields	International history, economic history, American and British imperial history
Institutions	Harvard University
Alma mater	Magdalen College, Oxford
Known for	Counterfactual history Economic history History of empire and imperialism
Influences	Thomas Hobbes, Norman Stone, A. J. P. Taylor, Kenneth Clark, Adam Smith, Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, David Landes
Spouse	Ayaan Hirsi Ali (m. 2011) «start: (2011-09)»"Marriage: Ayaan Hirsi Ali to Niall Ferguson" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Niall_Ferguson)

Niall Campbell Douglas Ferguson (born 18 April 1964)^[1] is a British historian. His speciality is financial and economic history, particularly hyperinflation and the bond markets, as well as the history of colonialism.^[2]

Ferguson, who was born in Glasgow, is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University^[1]. He was educated at the private Glasgow Academy in Scotland, and at Magdalen College, Oxford.

Ferguson's books include Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World, The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World and Civilization: The West and the Rest,^[3] all of which he has also presented as Channel 4 television series.

In 2004 he was named as one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine. He is currently^[when?] a contributing editor for Bloomberg Television and a columnist for Newsweek. He is currently^[when?] working on the official biography of Henry Kissinger to whom he has been granted unprecedented access.

Early life[link]

Ferguson was born the son of a doctor father and a physics teacher mother in Glasgow on 18 April 1964, and lived for a time near Ibrox Park.^[4][5] He attended The Glasgow Academy.^{[citation needed]}

Ferguson cites his father as instilling in him a strong sense of self-discipline and of the moral value of work, while his mother encouraged his creative side.^[6] His journalist maternal grandfather encouraged him to write.^[6] Unable to decide on studying an English or a History degree at university, Ferguson cites his reading of War and Peace as persuading him towards History.^[5] Of late 1970s Glasgow, Ferguson describes "the main industries" of the city as "sectarianism and strike action".^[5] He was brought up as and remains an atheist although he holds that the Ten Commandments remains a solid ethical code by which to live.^[7]

University of Oxford[link]

Ferguson received a Demyship (half-scholarship) at Magdalen College, Oxford, graduating with a first-class honours degree in History in 1985.^[8] While at Oxford he became best friends with Andrew Sullivan based on a shared love of right-wing politics and punk music.^[9] He became a Thatcherite by 1982, identifying the position with "the Sex Pistols' position in 1977: it was a rebellion against the stuffy corporatism of the 70s."^[5] While at university "He was very much a Scot on the make...Niall was a witty, belligerent bloke who seemed to have come from an entirely different planet," according to Simon Winder.^[9] Ferguson has stated that "I was surrounded by insufferable Etonians with fake Cockney accents who imagined themselves to be working-class heroes in solidarity with the striking miners. It wasn't long before it became clear that the really funny and interesting people on campus were Thatcherites."^[9]

Regarding slights and criticism, Ferguson has stated: "Nobody should ever imagine that they can do that kind of thing to me with impunity. Life is long, and revenge is a dish that tastes best cold. I'm very unforgiving."^[10]

Career[link]

Academic career[link]

• 1983-1986 M.A. (Hons.) Magdalen College, Oxford
• 1987–88 Hanseatic Scholar, Hamburg and Berlin
• 1989–90 Research Fellow, Christ’s College, University of Cambridge
• 1990–92 Official Fellow and Lecturer, Peterhouse, University of Cambridge
• 1992–2000 Fellow and Tutor in Modern History, Jesus College, University of Oxford
• 2000–02 Professor of Political and Financial History, University of Oxford
• 2002–04 John Herzog Professor in Financial History at Stern School of Business, New York University
• 2004-continuing Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History, Harvard University and William Ziegler Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School
• 2010-11 Philippe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs at the London School of Economics, located within LSE IDEAS, beginning in 2010^[11]

Ferguson is a Senior Research Fellow of Jesus College, University of Oxford and a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is a resident faculty member of the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, and an advisory fellow of the Barsanti Military History Center at the University of North Texas.

In May 2010 he announced that Education Secretary Michael Gove in the UK's Conservative/Lib Dem government had invited him to advise on the development of a new history syllabus—"history as a connected narrative"— for schools in England and Wales.^[2][12] In June 2011 it was announced that he would join the professoriate of New College of the Humanities, a private college in London.^[13]

Business career[link]

In 2007, Ferguson was appointed as an Investment Management Consultant by GLG Partners, focusing on geopolitical risk as well as current structural issues in economic behaviour relating to investment decisions.^[14] GLG is a UK-based hedge fund management firm headed by Noam Gottesman.^[15]

Career as commentator[link]

In October 2007, Niall Ferguson left The Sunday Telegraph to join the Financial Times,^[16] where he is now^[when?] a contributing editor.^[17] He also writes for Newsweek.^[2]

Ferguson has often described the European Union as a disaster waiting to happen,^[18] and has criticised President Vladimir Putin of Russia for authoritarianism. In Ferguson's view, certain of Putin's policies, if they continue, may stand to lead Russia to catastrophes equivalent to those that befell Germany during the Nazi era.^[19]

Interests and views[link]

World War I[link]

In 1998 Ferguson published the critically acclaimed The Pity of War: Explaining World War One, which with the help of research assistants he was able to write in just five months.^[8][9] This is an analytic account of what Ferguson considered to be the ten great myths of the Great War. The book generated much controversy, particularly Ferguson's suggestion that it might have proved more beneficial for Europe if Britain had stayed out of the First World War in 1914, thereby allowing Germany to win.^[20] Ferguson has argued that the British decision to intervene was what stopped a German victory in 1914–15. Furthermore, Ferguson expressed disagreement with the Sonderweg interpretation of German history championed by some German historians such as Fritz Fischer, Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Hans Mommsen and Wolfgang Mommsen, who argued that the German Empire deliberately started an aggressive war in 1914. Likewise, Ferguson has often attacked the work of the German historian Michael Stürmer, who argued that it was Germany's geographical situation in Central Europe that determined the course of German history.

On the contrary, Ferguson maintained that Germany waged a preventive war in 1914, a war largely forced on the Germans by reckless and irresponsible British diplomacy. In particular, Ferguson accused the British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey of maintaining an ambiguous attitude to the question of whether Britain would enter the war or not, and thus confusing Berlin over just what was the British attitude towards the question of intervention in the war.^[21] Ferguson accused London of unnecessarily allowing a regional war in Europe to escalate into a world war. Moreover, Ferguson denied that the origins of National Socialism could be traced back to Imperial Germany; instead Ferguson asserted the origins of Nazism could only be traced back to the First World War and its aftermath.

The “myths” of World War I that Ferguson attacked (with his counter-arguments in parentheses), are:

• That Germany was a highly militarist country before 1914 (Ferguson claims Germany was Europe’s most anti-militarist country)^[22]
• That naval challenges mounted by Germany drove Britain into informal alliances with France and Russia before 1914 (Ferguson claims the British were driven into alliances with France and Russia as a form of appeasement due to the strength of those nations, and an Anglo-German alliance failed to materialize due to German weakness)^[23]
• That British foreign policy was driven by legitimate fears of Germany (Ferguson claims Germany posed no threat to Britain before 1914, and that all British fears of Germany were due to irrational anti-German prejudices) ^[24]
• That the pre-1914 arms race was consuming ever larger portions of national budgets at an unsustainable rate (Ferguson claims that the only limitations on more military spending before 1914 were political, not economic)^[25]
• That World War I was, as Fritz Fischer claimed, a war of aggression on the part of Germany that necessitated British involvement to stop Germany from conquering Europe (Ferguson claims that if Germany had been victorious, something like the European Union would have been created in 1914, and that it would have been for the best if Britain had chosen to opt out of war in 1914)^[26]
• That most people were happy with the outbreak of war in 1914 (Ferguson claims that most Europeans were saddened by the coming of war) ^[27]
• That propaganda was successful in making men wish to fight (Ferguson argues the opposite)^[28]
• That the Allies made the best use of their economic resources (Ferguson argues that the Allies “squandered” their economic resources) ^[29]
• That the British and the French had the better armies (Ferguson claims the German Army was superior)^[30]
• That the Allies were more efficient at killing Germans (Ferguson argues that the Germans were more efficient at killing the Allies)^[31]
• That most soldiers hated fighting in the war (Ferguson argues most soldiers fought more or less willingly)^[32]
• That the British treated German prisoners of war well (Ferguson argues the British routinely killed German POWs)^[33]
• That Germany was faced with reparations after 1921 that could not be paid except at ruinous economic cost (Ferguson argues that Germany could easily have paid reparations had there been the political will)^[34]

Another controversial aspect of the Pity of War was Ferguson's use of counterfactual history. Ferguson presented a counter-factual version of Europe under Imperial German domination that was peaceful, prosperous, democratic and without ideologies like Communism and fascism.^[35] In Ferguson's view, had Germany won World War I, then the lives of millions would have been saved, something like the European Union would have been founded in 1914, and Britain would have remained an empire and the world's dominant financial power.^[35]

Rothschilds[link]

Ferguson wrote two volumes about the prominent Rothschild family:

• The House of Rothschild: Volume 1: Money's Prophets: 1798–1848^[36]
• The House of Rothschild: Volume 2: The World's Banker: 1849–1999^[37]

The books won the Wadsworth Prize for Business History and were also short-listed for the Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Literary Award and the American National Jewish Book Award.^[17]

Counterfactual history[link]

Ferguson sometimes champions counterfactual history, and edited a collection of essays exploring the subject titled Virtual History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals (1997). Ferguson likes to imagine alternative outcomes as a way of stressing the contingent aspects of history. For Ferguson, great forces don't make history; individuals do, and nothing is predetermined. Thus for Ferguson there are no paths in history that will determine how things will work out. The world is neither progressing nor regressing; only the actions of individuals will determine whether we live in a better or worse world. His championing of the method has been controversial within the field.^[38]

In a 2011 review of Ferguson's book Civilization: The West and the Rest, Noel Malcolm (a Senior Research Fellow in History at All Souls College at Oxford University) stated (without mentioning counterfactuals) that: "Students may find this an intriguing introduction to a wide range of human history; but they will get an odd idea of how historical argument is to be conducted, if they learn it from this book."^[39]

Henry Kissinger[link]

In 2003, former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger provided Ferguson with access to his White House diaries, letters, and archives for what Ferguson calls a "warts-and-all biography" of Kissinger.^[40]

Colonialism[link]

Ferguson is critical of what he calls the "self-flagellation" that he says characterizes modern European thought.

"The moral simplification urge is an extraordinarily powerful one, especially in this country, where imperial guilt can lead to self-flagellation," he told a reporter. "And it leads to very simplistic judgments. The rulers of western Africa prior to the European empires were not running some kind of scout camp. They were engaged in the slave trade. They showed zero sign of developing the country's economic resources. Did Senegal ultimately benefit from French rule? Yes, it's clear. And the counterfactual idea that somehow the indigenous rulers would have been more successful in economic development doesn't have any credibility at all."^[2]

Richard Drayton, Rhodes Professor of Imperial History at the University of London, has stated that it is correct to associate "Ferguson with an attempt to 'rehabilitate empire' in the service of contemporary great power interests".^[41]

Bernard Porter attacked Empire in The London Review of Books as a "panegyric to British colonialism".^[42] Ferguson in response to this drew Porter's attention to the conclusion of the book, where he writes: "No one would claim that the record of the British Empire was unblemished. On the contrary, I have tried to show how often it failed to live up to its own ideal of individual liberty, particularly in the early era of enslavement, transportation and the "ethnic cleansing" of indigenous peoples." Ferguson argues however that the British Empire was preferable to the alternatives:

'The 19th-century empire undeniably pioneered free trade, free capital movements and, with the abolition of slavery, free labour. It invested immense sums in developing a global network of modern communications. It spread and enforced the rule of law over vast areas. Though it fought many small wars, the empire maintained a global peace unmatched before or since. In the 20th century too the empire more than justified its own existence. For the alternatives to British rule represented by the German and Japanese Empires were clearly – and they admitted it themselves – far worse. And without its empire, it is inconceivable that Britain could have withstood them.'^[42]

Islam and Eurabia[link]

Matthew Carr wrote in Race & Class that "Niall Ferguson, the conservative English historian and enthusiastic advocate of a new American empire, has also embraced the Eurabian idea in a widely reproduced article entitled ‘Eurabia?’,^[43] in which he laments the 'de-Christianization of Europe' and its culture of secularism that leaves the continent 'weak in the face of fanaticism'." Carr adds that "Ferguson sees the recent establishment of a department of Islamic studies in his Oxford college as another symptom of 'the creeping Islamicization of a decadent Christendom'" and that in a 2004 lecture at the American Enterprise Institute entitled 'The end of Europe?',^[44] "Ferguson struck a similarly Spenglerian note, conjuring the term 'impire' to depict a process in which a ‘political entity, instead of expanding outwards towards its periphery, exporting power, implodes – when the energies come from outside into that entity’. In Ferguson's opinion, this process was already under way in a decadent 'post-Christian' Europe that was drifting inexorably towards the dark denouement of a vanquished civilisation and the fatal embrace of Islam."^[45]

Iraq war[link]

Ferguson supported the Iraq war and is not necessarily opposed to future incursions in the world.

"It's all very well for us to sit here in the west with our high incomes and cushy lives, and say it's immoral to violate the sovereignty of another state. But if the effect of that is to bring people in that country economic and political freedom, to raise their standard of living, to increase their life expectancy, then don't rule it out".^[2]

Economic policy[link]

In its 15 August 2005 edition, The New Republic published "The New New Deal", an essay by Ferguson and Laurence J. Kotlikoff, a Professor of Economics at Boston University. The two scholars called for the following changes to the American government's fiscal and income security policies:

• Replacing the personal income tax, corporate income tax, Federal Insurance Contributions Act tax (FICA), estate tax, and gift tax with a 33% Federal Retail Sales Tax (FRST), plus a monthly rebate, amounting to the FRST a household with similar demographics would pay if its income were at the poverty line. See also: FairTax
• Replacing the Old Age benefits paid under Social Security with a Personal Security System, consisting of private retirement accounts for all citizens, plus a government benefit payable to those whose savings were insufficient to afford a minimum retirement income
• Replacing Medicare and Medicaid with a Medical Security System that would provide health insurance vouchers to all citizens, the value of which would be determined by one's health
• Cutting federal discretionary spending by 20%

Criticisms[link]

As scholar[link]

Fellow academics have questioned Ferguson's commitment to scholarship. Benjamin Wallace-Wells, an editor of The Washington Monthly, comments that

"The House of Rothschild remains Ferguson's only major work to have received prizes and wide acclaim from other historians. Research restrains sweeping, absolute claims: Rothschild is the last book Ferguson wrote for which he did original archival work, and his detailed knowledge of his subject meant that his arguments for it couldn't be too grand."^[46]

John Lewis Gaddis, a Cold War era historian, characterized Ferguson as having unrivaled "range, productivity and visibility" at the same time as criticising his work as being "unpersuasive". Gaddis goes on to state that "several of Ferguson's claims, moreover, are contradictory".^[47]

Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm has praised Ferguson as an excellent historian.^[48] However, he has also criticised Ferguson, saying, on the BBC Radio programme Start the Week, that he was a "nostalgist for empire".^[49] Ferguson responded to the above criticisms in a Washington Post "Live Discussions" online forum in 2006.^[50]

Exchanges with Krugman[link]

In May 2009, Ferguson became involved in a high-profile exchange of views with economist Paul Krugman (winner in 2008 of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics) arising out of a panel discussion hosted by Pen/New York Review on 30 April 2009, regarding the U.S. economy. Ferguson contended that the Obama administration's policies are simultaneously Keynesian and monetarist, in an incoherent mix, and specifically that the government's issuance of a multitude of new bonds will cause an increase in interest rates. Krugman then extended the criticism to China and the European Union, as both pursued policies more in accord with Ferguson's stance than Krugman's.^{[51][52][53][54]}

Krugman has argued that Ferguson's view is "resurrecting 75-year old fallacies" and full of "basic errors". He has also stated that Ferguson is a "poseur" who "...hasn't bothered to understand the basics, relying on snide comments and surface cleverness to convey the impression of wisdom. It's all style, no comprehension of substance."^{[55][56][57][58]}

Personal life[link]

Ferguson married journalist Susan Douglas, whom he met in 1987 when she was his editor at the Daily Mail. They have three children.^[59] They separated in 2010 and divorced in 2011.

In February 2010 news media reported that Ferguson had separated from Douglas and started dating former Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali.^[60][61][62] Ferguson married Hirsi Ali in September 2011.^[63] News media^[who?] have reported that Hirsi Ali and Ferguson had a baby boy in late December 2011.^{[citation needed]} Ferguson dedicated his book Civilization to "Ayaan". In an interview with The Guardian, Ferguson spoke about his love for Ali, who, he writes in the preface, "understands better than anyone I know what Western civilisation really means – and what it still has to offer the world".^[2] Ali, he continued,

...grew up in the Muslim world, was born in Somalia, spent time in Saudi Arabia, was a fundamentalist as a teenager. Her journey from the world of her childhood and family to where she is today is an odyssey that's extremely hard for you or I to imagine. To see and hear how she understands western philosophy, how she understands the great thinkers of the Enlightenment, of the 19th-century liberal era, is a great privilege, because she sees it with a clarity and freshness of perspective that's really hard for us to match. So much of liberalism in its classical sense is taken for granted in the west today and even disrespected. We take freedom for granted, and because of this we don't understand how incredibly vulnerable it is.^[2]

Ferguson's self confessed workaholism has placed strains on his personal relations in the past. Ferguson has commented that:

...from 2002, the combination of making TV programmes and teaching at Harvard took me away from my children too much. You don't get those years back. You have to ask yourself: "Was it a smart decision to do those things?" I think the success I have enjoyed since then has been bought at a significant price. In hindsight, there would have been a bunch of things that I would have said no to.^[6]

Ferguson's younger sister is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania.^[6]

Ferguson was the inspiration for Alan Bennett's play The History Boys (2004), particularly the character of Irwin, a history teacher who urges his pupils to find a counterintuitive angle, and goes on to become a television historian.^[4]

Bibliography[link]

[edit] The Cash Nexus

In his 2001 book, The Cash Nexus, which he wrote following a year as Houblon-Norman Fellow at the Bank of England,^[17] Ferguson argues that the popular saying, "money makes the world go 'round", is wrong; instead he presented a case for human actions in history motivated by far more than just economic concerns.

[edit] Colossus and Empire

In his books Colossus and Empire, Ferguson presents reinterpretation of the history of the British Empire and in conclusion proposes that the modern policies of the United Kingdom and the United States, in taking a more active role in resolving conflict arising from the failure of states, are analogous to the 'Anglicization' policies adopted by the British Empire throughout the 19th century.^[64][65] In Colossus, Ferguson explores the United States' hegemony in foreign affairs and its future role in the world.^[66][67]

[edit] War of the World

The War of the World, published in 2006, had been ten years in the making and is a comprehensive analysis of the savagery of the 20th century. Ferguson shows how a combination of economic volatility, decaying empires, psychopathic dictators, and racially/ethnically motivated (and institutionalized) violence resulted in the wars and the genocides of what he calls "History's Age of Hatred". The New York Times Book Review named War of the World one of the 100 Notable Books of the Year in 2006, while the International Herald Tribune called it "one of the most intriguing attempts by an historian to explain man's inhumanity to man".^[68] Ferguson addresses the paradox that, though the 20th century was "so bloody", it was also "a time of unparalleled [economic] progress". As with his earlier work Empire,^[69] War of the World was accompanied by a Channel 4 television series presented by Ferguson.^[70]

[edit] The Ascent of Money

Published in 2008, The Ascent of Money examines the long history of money, credit, and banking. In it he predicts a financial crisis as a result of the world economy and in particular the United States using too much credit. Specifically he cites the China–America dynamic which he refers to as Chimerica where an Asian "savings glut" helped create the subprime mortgage crisis with an influx of easy money.^[71]

[edit] Civilization

Published in 2011, Civilization: The West and the Rest examines what Ferguson calls the most "interesting question" of our day: "Why, beginning around 1500, did a few small polities on the western end of the Eurasian landmass come to dominate the rest of the world?" He attributes this divergence to the West's development of six "killer apps" largely missing elsewhere in the world - "competition, science, democracy, medicine, consumerism and the work ethic".^[2] A related documentary Civilization: Is the West History? was broadcast as a six part series on Channel 4 in March and April 2011.^[72]

Publications[link]

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

• Ferguson, Niall (2012). Henry Kissinger: A Life. Allen Lane. 
• Ferguson, Niall (2011). Civilization: The West and the Rest. The Penguin Press HC. ISBN 978-1-59420-305-3. http://books.google.com/books?id=mRO3xuoTTeoC&printsec=frontcover. 
• Ferguson, Niall (2010). High Financier: The Lives And Times Of Siegmund Warburg. New York: Penguin. ISBN 978-1-59420-246-9. 
• Ferguson, Niall (2008). The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World. London: Allen Lane. ISBN 978-1-84614-106-5. 
• Ferguson, Niall (2006). The War of the World: History's Age of Hatred. London: Allen Lane. ISBN 0-7139-9708-7.  (also a Channel 4 series)^[70]
• Ferguson, Niall (2003). Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-02328-2. 
• Ferguson, Niall (2005). 1914. Pocket Penguins 70s S.. London, England: Penguin Books Ltd. ISBN 0-14-102220-5. 
• Ferguson, Niall (2004). Colossus: The Rise And Fall Of The American Empire. Gardners Books. ISBN 0-7139-9770-2. 
• Ferguson, Niall (2003). Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World. London: Allen Lane. ISBN 0-7139-9615-3. 
• Ferguson, Niall (2001). The Cash Nexus: Money and Power in the Modern World, 1700-2000. London: Allen Lane. ISBN 0-7139-9465-7. 
• Ferguson, Niall (1999) [1997]. Virtual History: Alternatives and Counterfactuals. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-02322-3. 
• Ferguson, Niall (1999) [1998]. The Pity of War. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-05711-X. 
• Ferguson, Niall (1999). The House of Rothschild: The World's Banker, 1849–1999. New York, N.Y.: Viking. ISBN 0-670-88794-3. 
• Ferguson, Niall (1998). The World's Banker: The History of the House of Rothschild. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 0-297-81539-3. 
• Ferguson, Niall (1998). The House of Rothschild. New York: Viking. ISBN 0-670-85768-8. 
• Ferguson, Niall (1995). Paper and Iron: Hamburg Business and German Politics in the Era of Inflation, 1897–1927. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-47016-1. 

As Contributor[link]

• “Europa nervosa”, in Nader Mousavizadeh (ed.), The Black Book of Bosnia (New Republic/Basic Books, 1996), pp. 127–32
• “The German inter-war economy: Political choice versus economic determinism” in Mary Fulbrook (ed.), German History since 1800 (Arnold, 1997), pp. 258–278
• “The balance of payments question: Versailles and after” in Manfred F. Boemeke, Gerald D. Feldman and Elisabeth Glaser (eds.), The Treaty of Versailles: A Reassessment after 75 Years (Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 401–440
• “‘The Caucasian Royal Family’: The Rothschilds in national contexts” in R. Liedtke (ed.), ‘Two Nations’: The Historical Experience of British and German Jews in Comparison (J.C.B. Mohr, 1999)
• “Academics and the Press”, in Stephen Glover (ed.), Secrets of the Press: Journalists on Journalism (Penguin, 1999), pp. 206–220
• “Metternich and the Rothschilds: A reappraisal” in Andrea Hamel and Edward Timms (eds.), Progress and Emancipation in the Age of Metternich: Jews and Modernisation in Austria and Germany, 1815–1848 (Edwin Mellen Press, 1999), pp. 295–325
• “The European economy, 1815–1914” in T.C.W. Blanning (ed.), The Short Oxford History of Europe: The Nineteenth Century (Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 78–125
• “How (not) to pay for the war: Traditional finance and total war” in Roger Chickering and Stig Förster (eds.), Great War, Total War: Combat and Mobilization on the Western Front (Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 409–34
• “Introduction” in Frederic Manning, Middle Parts of Fortune (Penguin, 2000), pp. vii-xviii
• “Clashing civilizations or mad mullahs: The United States between informal and formal empire” in Strobe Talbott (ed.), The Age of Terror (Basic Books, 2001), pp. 113–41
• “Public debt as a post-war problem: The German experience after 1918 in comparative perspective” in Mark Roseman (ed.), Three Post-War Eras in Comparison: Western Europe 1918-1945-1989 (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2002), pp. 99–119
• “Das Haus Sachsen-Coburg und die europäische Politik des 19. Jahrhunderts”, in Rainer von Hessen (ed.), Victoria Kaiserin Friedrich (1840–1901): Mission und Schicksal einer englischen Prinzessin in Deutschland (Campus Verlag, 2002), pp. 27–39
• “Max Warburg and German politics: The limits of financial power in Wilhelmine Germany”, in Geoff Eley and James Retallack (eds.), Wilhelminism and Its Legacies: German Modernities, Imperialism and the Meaning of Reform, 1890-1930 (Berghahn Books, 2003), pp. 185–201
• “Introduction”, The Death of the Past by J. H. Plumb (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), pp. xxi-xlii
• “Globalization in historical perspective: The political dimension”, in Michael D. Bordo, Alan M. Taylor and Jeffrey G. Williamson (eds.), Globalisation in Historical Perspective (National Bureau of Economic Research Conference Report) (University of Chicago Press, 2003)
• “Introduction to Tzvetan Todorov” in Nicholas Owen (ed.), Human Rights, Human Wrongs: Oxford Amnesty Lectures (Amnesty International, 2003)
• “The City of London and British imperialism: New light on an old question”, in Youssef Cassis and Eric Bussière (eds.), London and Paris as International Financial Centres in the Twentieth Century (Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 57–77
• “A bolt from the blue? The City of London and the outbreak of the First World War”, in Wm. Roger Louis (ed.), Yet More Adventures with Britainnia: Personalities, Politics and Culture in Britain (I.B. Tauris, 2005), pp. 133–145
• “The first ‘Eurobonds’: The Rothschilds and the financing of the Holy Alliance, 1818–1822”, in William N. Goetzmann and K. Geert Rouwenhorst (eds.), The Origins of Value: The Financial Innovations that Created Modern Capital Markets (Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 311–323
• “Prisoner taking and prisoner killing in the age of total war”, in George Kassemiris (ed.), The Barbarization of Warfare (New York University Press, 2006), pp. 126–158
• “The Second World War as an economic disaster”, in Michael Oliver (ed.), Economic Disasters of the Twentieth Century (Edward Elgar, 2007), pp. 83–132
• “The Problem of Conjecture: American Strategy after the Bush Doctrine”, in Melvyn Leffler and Jeff Legro (eds.), To Lead the World: American Strategy After the Bush Doctrine (Oxford University Press, 2008)

Television documentaries[link]

• Empire (2003)
• American Colossus (2004)
• The War of the World (2006)
• The Ascent of Money (2008)
• Civilization: Is the West History? (2011)
• China: Triumph and Turmoil (2012)

See also[link]

• Anglosphere
• Chimerica

References[link]

Notes[link]