Alan Lester is Professor of Historical Geography at the University of Sussex and Professor of History at La Trobe University. He is the author of Imperial Networks: Creating Identities in Nineteenth-Century South Africa and Britain (2001) and the co-author of Colonization and the Origins of Humanitarian Governance: Protecting Aborigines Across the Nineteenth-Century British Empire (2014). Kate Boehme is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Leicester. She has published on South Asian History in a number of journals, including the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. Peter Mitchell is a writer and historian from Newcastle. He is the author of Imperial Nostalgia (forthcoming).

• Introduction; Part I. 1838: The Year of Freedom: 1. Setting the scene for emancipation; 2. Managing expectations; 3. Political freedom; 4. Settler liberties; 5. Free trade, famine and invasion; 6. Steam and opium; Conclusion to Part I: An empire of freedom?; Part II. 1857: The Year of Civilization: 7. Setting the scene: Hubris and crisis; 8. 'A struggle of life and death'; 9. A new imperial government; Conclusion to Part II: An empire of civilization?; Part III. 1879: The Year of Liberalism: 10. Liberal fathers and sons; 11. Imperialism; 12. Imperial wars and their aftermaths; Conclusion to Part III: A liberal empire?; Appendix. Cast of characters.

'Ruling the World will change our understanding of the British Empire and the societies that were formed and transformed under its rule. Strikingly, it brings alive both the actions of individuals and the broader sweep of imperial history. Never before has a focus on the actions of elite white men been so enlightening for understanding what the empire meant for the Indigenous peoples they sought to govern.' Ann Curthoys, co-author with Jessie Mitchell of Taking Liberty: Indigenous Rights and Settler Self-government in Colonial Australia, 1830–1890