'THREE VICTORIES AND A DEFEAT: THE RISE AND FALL OF THE FIRST BRITISH EMPIRE, 1714-1783'

SIMMS, BRENDAN

ISBN 10: 0713994266 / ISBN 13: 9780713994261

Published by allen lane, United Kingdom, 2007

About this Item

Allen Lane. Book Condition: Used - as New. illustrated edition. 2007. Hardcover. Fine. Dj is as New. In the eighteenth century, Britain became a world superpower through a series of sensational military strikes. Traditionally, the Royal Navy has been seen as Britain's key weapon, but in Three Victories and a Defeat Brendan Simms argues that Britain's true strength lay with the German aristocrats who ruled it at the time. The House of Hanover superbly managed a complex series of European alliances that enabled Britain to keep the continental balance of power in check while dramatically expanding her own empire. These alliances sustained the nation through the War of the Spanish Succession, the War of the Austrian Succession, and the Seven Years' War. But in 1776, Britain lost the American continent by alienating her European allies.

Seller Inventory # 000164

Bibliographic Details

• Title: 'THREE VICTORIES AND A DEFEAT: THE RISE AND FALL OF THE FIRST BRITISH EMPIRE, 1714-1783'
• Publisher: allen lane, United Kingdom
• Publication Date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0713994266
• ISBN 13: 9780713994261
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Illustrated
• Edition: 1st Edition.
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fine

About this title

Synopsis

This highly original, extremely enjoyable book tells the story of Britain’s extraordinary scramble to world power in the 18th century and how, through hubris and incompetence, it lost almost everything it had gained.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, Britain was an important European power, but few would have predicted her global pre-eminence by 1760. As Brendan Simms shows with great flair and originality, Britain had a crucial card to play. It was the joining of the British crown to Hanover that gave Britain two empires: one scattered around the world and another – the more important of the two - firmly locked into Germany.

Having created a new empire Britain then spectacularly lost it, this time because of its chaotic failure to maintain its European alliances. This is an epic and often unexpected story, and Simms tells it brilliantly.

About the Author

Brendan Simms is a Fellow of Peterhouse, Cambridge and Reader in the History of International Relations at the Centre for International Studies, University of Cambridge and the author of The Struggle for Mastery in Germany and Unfinest Hour: Britain and the Destruction of Bosnia.