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The story of the British Empire is a familiar one: Britain came, it
saw, it conquered, forging a glorious world empire upon which the sun
never set. In fact, far from being the tale of a single nation imposing
its will upon the world, the British Empire found itself reshaped by
the tenacious resistance of the powerful Indigenous and non-European
people it encountered. From ill-advised ventures in Ireland to the
failure to curtail North African Corsair states all the way to the
collapse of commercial operations in East Asia, British attempts to
create an imperial enterprise often ended in embarrassment and even
disaster.
In this book, David Veevers looks beyond the myths of triumph and into
the realities of British misadventures in the early days of Empire,
meeting the extraordinary people across the world who were the real
forces to be reckoned with. From the Emperors who determined the
expansion of the English East India Company, to the West African kings
who resisted English entreaties and set the terms of the lucrative
slave trade, to the Paramount Chiefs in America who fought to expunge
European forces from their homelands, The Great Defiance retells the
story of early Empire from the perspective of the Indigenous and
non-European people who held the fate of the British in their hands.
'Veevers brilliantly retells the story we thought we
knew...Important and thrilling' Dan Snow The story of the British
Empire is a familiar one: Britain came, it saw, it conquered,
forging a glorious world empire upon which the sun never set. In
fact, far from being the tale of a single nation imposing its will
upon the world, the expanding British Empire frequently found
itself frustrated by the power and tenacious resistance of the
Indigenous and non-European people it encountered. From gruelling
wars in Ireland to the failure to curtail North African Corsair
states, all the way to the collapse of commercial operations in
East Asia, British attempts to create an imperial enterprise often
ended in disaster and even defeat. In The Great Defiance, David
Veevers looks beyond the myths of triumph and into the realities of
British misadventures in the early days of Empire, meeting the
extraordinary Indigenous and non-European people across the world
who were the real forces to be reckoned with. From the Indian
Emperors who contained the nefarious ambitions of the East India
Company, to the West African Kings who resisted British demands and
set the terms of the trade in enslaved people, to the Paramount
Chiefs in America who fought to expunge English colonists from
their homelands, this book retells the history of early Empire from
the all too familiar story of conquest to one of empowering
defiance and resistance.
This is an important, revisionist account of the origins of the
British Empire in Asia in the early modern period. David Veevers
uncovers a hidden world of transcultural interactions between
servants of the English East India Company and the Asian
communities and states they came into contact with, revealing how
it was this integration of Europeans into non-European economies,
states and societies which was central to British imperial and
commercial success rather than national or mercantilist enterprise.
As their servants skilfully adapted to this rich and complex
environment, the East India Company became enfranchised by the
eighteenth century with a breadth of privileges and rights - from
governing sprawling metropolises to trading customs-free. In
emphasising the Asian genesis of the British Empire, this book
sheds new light on the foreign frameworks of power which fuelled
the expansion of Global Britain in the early modern world.
This is an important, revisionist account of the origins of the
British Empire in Asia in the early modern period. David Veevers
uncovers a hidden world of transcultural interactions between
servants of the English East India Company and the Asian
communities and states they came into contact with, revealing how
it was this integration of Europeans into non-European economies,
states and societies which was central to British imperial and
commercial success rather than national or mercantilist enterprise.
As their servants skilfully adapted to this rich and complex
environment, the East India Company became enfranchised by the
eighteenth century with a breadth of privileges and rights - from
governing sprawling metropolises to trading customs-free. In
emphasising the Asian genesis of the British Empire, this book
sheds new light on the foreign frameworks of power which fuelled
the expansion of Global Britain in the early modern world.
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