England's Colonial Wars 1550-1688

Bruce Lenman is Professor of Modern History at the University of St. Andrews. He has also written Britain's Colonial Wars, 1688 - 1783.

• Introduction Give war a chance; 1: The Tudor Crown, the English Nation, and the Heritage of Anglo-Norman Expansionism 1550-1603; 1: Colonial Englishmen face up to the Tudors; 3: The Gaidhealtachd and the colonial enterprise; 4: Feeding frenzy: marginal courtiers and perceived opportunities, 1578-1590; 5: Nadir of statesmanship: the origins of the last Elizabethan colonial war; 6: The bankruptcy of Elizabethan imperialism and the fatal fracturing of the Englishry; 2: Three-Kingdom Monarchy and Empire 1603-1688; 7: Reluctant warriors: James I, Charles I, appeasement and the aborting of a three-kingdom overseas empire; 8: No enthusiasts for empire: the English East India Company and the struggle for maritime trade in seventeenth-century Asia to 1689; 9: War in the New English marchlands in North America 1607-1676; 10: The clash of European states and the rise of the imperial factor in the Caribbean and North America; 11: Conclusion The fracturing of the Englishry, the marginality of colonial enterprise, and the erratic impact of war

'both books deserve attention, not least because they bring military history back into the mainstream and demonstrate the centrality of conquest to the development of western Europe...'Trevor Royle, Sunday Herald 'vigorously inconoclastic...It is hard to imagine any reader who will not find his or her views challenged by Lenman's robust and splendidly unpredictable views'Professor Peter Marshall, Reviews in History 'Lenman has not only written an excellent survey of eighteenth century colonial wars, he has shown how this subject can be tackled'George Boyce, University of Wales, UK