Between 1688 and 1775 Britain developed and expanded a large territorial empire in North America, India and the West Indies. Instead of concentrating on the factors which led to the eventual dissolution of the 'first British empire', this book examines the cultural, economic and social forces that gave that empire a sense of coherence and structure before the American Revolution.

By focusing on the part played by elites in shaping the British overseas presence, and by considering the implications of economic and social developments in Britain itself, the eighteenth-century empire is placed in a broad historiographical context informed by important recent work on the 'fiscal-military state', 'gentlemanly capitalism', and identities.

This allows the empire to be seen not as a series of unconnected territorial possessions scattered across the world, but as a commercial, cultural and social body of reasonably sharp definition with its roots very firmly planted in metropolitan society.