From Nation State to Empire: Britain in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, Britain was on the brink of great power status. A series of wars with France confirmed her leading role in Europe. By the end of the nineteenth century, she ruled the greatest empire the world had ever seen. In the intervening period she had become the world’s first industrial nation, and was celebrated as ‘the mother of Parliaments’. But the democracy was imperfect, the social problems remained intense and other nations were competing for economic leadership and great power status.