In the nineteenth century, the industrialrevolution and population growth in Europe gave rise to a new impetus forcolonial expansion, of which the United Kingdom is one of the main players.The British colonial empire is aterritorial ensemble governed or administered by the United Kingdom.
At itsapogee in the early 20th century, it was the first power and colonial empire inthe world. It then brought together a quarter of the world’s population, ormore than 400 millions of inhabitants (Maddison 2001:98), and spread overterritories covering 30 million km² (Ferguson 2004:15). It was then thegreatest empire of all time.To compare, the French colonial empire atits apogee before the Second World War covered 12 million km² and had “just” 70million inhabitants.In the first place, I will explain thedifferent stages of British colonization, before talking about the control ofthe Empire’s domination and statutes. Then I will see the economic and culturalpower imposed on these territories.
Finally, I will conclude with inner andouter resistance to this imperialism and the legacy of this Empire on this day.
