A History of Britain Season 2 Episode 4

The Wrong Empire (1750 - 1800)

How did a people who thought themselves free end up subjugating so much of the world, a nation with such a distrust of armies become the greatest military power on Earth, an empire of the free become an empire of slaves?Britons took the flag across the globe and created an empire built on ambition and slavery, exploration and daring. Trade flourished in the addictive commodities of tea, sugar and coffee, as did the deplorable trade in people. Taxation lost Britain the American colonies, but paved the way for dominance in India, as tax gatherers became administrators and merchants, emperors. The Wrong Empire is the exhilarating and terrible story of how one small group of islands came to dominate the world; a story of exploration and daring, but also one of exploitation and conflict.