“America is lost! Must we fall beneath the blow? Or have we resources that may repair the mischiefs?” These are the opening words of a memo in the hand of George III in the wake of the 1783 Peace of P

WAR, EMPIRE AND THE STRUGGLE FOR A NEW WORLD

A liberal thinker about the American century

Our gardens have difficult histories. As a historian of empire, writing a book re-telling the stories of America’s plants, I spend swathes of my day reckoning with them. Most of the plants we grow wer

LETTERS

In his new book, Edmond Smith addresses a question that has occupied generations of historians: why was Britain the first country to industrialise, thus securing its global dominance in the 19th centu