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By 1913 the British Empire governed about 400 million people, roughly 23 percent of humanity, yet it grew without a master plan. John Cabot reached Newfoundland in 1497 believing it was Asia, then vanished with his fleet on a second voyage. Under Elizabeth I, privateers Francis Drake and John Hawkins raided Spanish treasure, and John Dee coined the term British Empire. Caribbean sugar and the triangular trade carried about three and a half million Africans on British ships, before the 1807 abolition led by figures such as William Wilberforce. The East India Company won Plassey in 1757 under Robert Clive and gained tax rights over Bengal.

Scotland’s 1698 Darien scheme in Panama wiped out about a quarter of its national capital and pushed it toward the 1707 Acts of Union. After 1815 steamships, an informal empire of debt and gunboats, and the All Red Line telegraph of 1902 held the system together, with dominions governing themselves. Decline came fast: naval parity with the U.S. in 1922, the fall of Singapore in 1942, a $3.75 billion American loan in 1946, Suez in 1956 and Hong Kong in 1997.

• The Royal African Company held a slave trade monopoly from 1672 to 1712.
• Darien colonists brought heavy wool to trade in a malarial jungle.
• More than 80,000 British, Indian and Australian troops were captured at Singapore.
• People under British rule outside the UK fell from 700 million to 5 million between 1945 and 1965.
• Caroline Elkins and Amartya Sen stress extraction and famine, while Niall Ferguson stresses infrastructure.