Empire

The first sod of the longest railway on earth was turned by the last of the Tsars in 1891; Hilda Hookham describes an epic process of construction, with the line finally completed in 1904.

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, writes Louis C. Kleber, the British came to America largely as settlers; the French as explorers and fortune-seekers.

J.D. Hargreaves introduces a prophet of nationalism in the coastal countries of West Africa.

From 1775 onwards, writes Mildred Archer, a succession of British officials delighted in the centre of Hindu religion and learning upon the banks of the Ganges.

A manager of men and a master of contemporary politics, writes Esmond Wright, Dundas was Pitt's energetic colleague “during the most critical years in British history except for 1940”—not a hero, but a vigorous man of affairs who “rendered some service to both his countries.”

Edna Bradlow writes that while Paul Kruger felt he had an obligation to protect his country's moral right on behalf of the Transvaal Republic, Chamberlain, speaking for his own countrymen, declared that the issue involved both “our supremacy in South Africa and our existence as a great power”.

George Woodcock describes how the Imperial Conference of 1930, and accompanying events overseas, began the change of substantial empire into a shadowy Commonwealth.

The connexions of the French with Vietnam began in the eighteenth century; D.R. Watson describes how their legacy was passed to the United States in 1954.

From the first British Viceroy whom he encountered Gandhi received a decoration; the last, ten years ago, sat beside his funeral pyre. During the stormy intervening period he came into contact, and often into conflict, with six others; Francis Watson describes how each relationship marked a different stage in the long historical process that culminated in 1947.

By the 1840s, writes Gerald S. Graham, there flourished a fast regular steamship between Britain and India, with fierce competition between Calcutta and Bombay.