…

Dominance

Britain was perhaps never the “workshop of the world,” but her industrial dominance was such in the middle of the nineteenth century that the phrase is legitimate. She produced perhaps two thirds of the world’s coal, perhaps half its iron, five sevenths of its small supply of steel, about half of such cotton cloth as was produced on a commercial scale, and forty per cent (in value) of its hardware. On the other hand even in 1840 Britain possessed only about one third of the world’s steam power and produced probably something less than one third of the world’s total manufactures. The chief rival state, even then, was the USA — or rather the northern states of the USA — with France, the German Confederation and Belgium. [112]

Disaster

The British middle-class citizen who surveyed the scene in the early 1870s might well have thought that all was for the best in the best of all possible worlds. Nothing very serious was supposed to go wrong with the British economy. But it did. Just as phase one of industrialization stumbled into self-made depression and crisis, so phase two bred its own difficulties. The years between 1873 and 1896 are known to economic historians, who have discussed them more eagerly than any other phase of nineteenth-century business conjecture, as the “Great Depression.” The name is misleading. So far as the working people are concerned, it cannot compare with the cataclysms of the 1830s and 1840s, or the 1920s and 1930s. But if “depression” indicates a pervasive — and for the generation since 1850 a new — state of mind of uneasiness and gloom about the prospects of the British economy, the word is accurate. [105]

References

Hobsbawm, Eric. Industry and Empire: The Birth of the Industrial Revolution. rev. ed. New York: New Press, 1999.

I have decided to do my project with Wonseok

Our goals are that we focus about the Victorian Age and gather up information that we found.

We have not decided how our final project is going to look like.

some Brainstorming

Victorian  Age

- Colonialism

- India

- sepoy munity

- India before imperialism

- India after imperialism

- Rise of Victorian Empire

- Decline of the Victorian Empire

***http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_era*** good website

Wonseok has the same blog on his page…

And most of the credit does go to Wonseok…………..

She was the longest reigning British monarch and the figurehead of a vast empire… Society has given her name to an Age…

Her name is… Victoria

She was the one who oversaw a period of significant social, economic, and technological change in the United Kingdom. Victoria’s reign was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire and during the period it reached its zenith, becoming the formidable Global Power of the time.

The figurehead of the greatest empire in history….

citations: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_of_the_United_Kingdom#Succession

Just a list of bullet points that outline the most important happenings… Before the Victorian Age…

• Though it has now mostly evolved into the Commonwealth of Nations, British influence remains strong throughout the world: in economic practice, legal and governmental systems, militarily, society, sports (such as cricket and football), and the English language itself, to name just a few.

• Because of its size at the peak of its power, it was often said that “the sun never sets on the British Empire” because the empire’s span across the globe ensured that the sun was always shining on at least one of its numerous colonies. The foundations of sea power, having been laid during Henry VII’s reign, were gradually expanded to protect English trade and open up new routes. King Henry VIII founded the modern English navy through plans for new docks, and the construction of the network of beacons and lighthouses that greatly facilitated coastal navigation for English and foreign merchant sailors. Henry thus established the munitions-based Royal Navy that was able to hold off the Spanish Armada in 1588, and his innovations provided the seed for the Imperial navy of later days.

• In 1583 Sir Humphrey Gilbert claimed the island of Newfoundland as England’s for Elizabeth I, reinforcing John Cabot’s prior claim to the island in 1497, for Henry VII, as England’s first overseas colony….

• The old British colonial system began to decline in the 18th century. During the long period of unbroken Whig dominance of domestic political life (1714–62), the Empire became less important and less well-regarded, until an ill-fated attempt (largely involving taxes, monopolies, and zoning) to reverse the resulting “salutary neglect” (or “benign neglect”) provoked the American War of Independence (1775–83), depriving Britain of her most populous colonies, although British investment continued to play a major role in the United States economy until the First World War.

• The period is sometimes referred to as the end of the “first British Empire”, indicating the shift of British expansion from the Americas in the 17th and 18th centuries to the “second British Empire” in Asia and later also Africa from the 18th century.

• The British East India Company was probably the most successful chapter in the British Empire’s history as it was responsible for the annexation of most of the Indian subcontinent, which would become the British Empire’s largest source of revenue, along with the conquest of Hong Kong, Singapore, Ceylon, Malaya (which was also one of the largest sources of revenue) and other surrounding Asian countries, and was thus responsible for establishing Britain’s Asian empire, the most important component of the British Empire.

Citations

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_empire

The British Empire was arguably the greatest in history, and was the most prominent global power for a substantial period of time.

So how did such a small country like Britain go on to conquer what seemed like the whole world back then??

A question such as this, has layers and layers of answers that needs to be addressed before we end up with the ultimate answer…

But a formula reduced to the simplest possible, that can outline the rise of the British Empire is:

The European age of Discovery + Maritime explorations= The beginning of the European colonial expansion (especially the British colonial expansion)

Such beginning was to start as early as the reign of King Henry VII (who reigned from 1485~1509) as he was the one to establish the modern English merchant marine system, which has greatly influenced English seafaring and shipbuilding.

And the end of the Empire is marked by end of British rule over Hong Kong in 1997… So that would add up to around 500 years of history of the British Empire… By 1921, they held over 458 million people, a quarter of the world’s population within their 36.6 million square kilometers of land, a quarter of the planet’s total land area….

And so here begins a quick 500 year quest of the British Empire and its rich history…

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_empire

Welcome to Learnerblogs.org. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!