Empire

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.

Ross Watson describes how Jefferson came to English shores on public business, but travelled widely, and made many purchases.

Following the Indian Mutiny of 1857, it was proposed that British soldiers of the defunct East India Company should become an integral part of the Royal forces. J.M. Brereton describes the troubles that resulted.

Lansing Collins describes how, in honour of a previous gift sent in the other direction, Elizabeth I presented Sultan Mohammed III with an elaborate clock, surmounted by singing birds that shook their wings.

Geoffrey Treasure describes how the imperial policies of Charles V and Philip II declined in the seventeenth century and Spain entered an extended period of depression.

J.M. Brereton describes how Russian advances in Central Asia alarmed the British authorities in London as well as in India.

During the Mamluk Sultanate, writes P.M. Holt, men imported as slaves and trained as warriors became rulers of a great Islamic state.