The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Expansion of Europe, by Ramsay Muir

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Title: The Expansion of Europe
The Culmination of Modern History

Author: Ramsay Muir

Posting Date: August 11, 2009 [EBook #4326]
Release Date: August, 2003
First Posted: January 5, 2002

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE

THE CULMINATION OF MODERN HISTORY

BY RAMSAY MUIR

PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER

SECOND EDITION

TO MY MOTHER

PREFACE

The purpose of this book is twofold.

We realise to-day, as never before, that the fortunes of the world, and
of every individual in it, are deeply affected by the problems of
world-politics and by the imperial expansion and the imperial rivalries
of the greater states of Western civilisation. But when men who have
given no special attention to the history of these questions try to
form a sound judgment on them, they find themselves handicapped by the
lack of any brief and clear resume of the subject. I have tried, in
this book, to provide such a summary, in the form of a broad survey,
unencumbered with detail, but becoming fuller as it comes nearer to our
own time. That is my first purpose. In fulfilling it I have had to
cover much well-trodden ground. But I hope I have avoided the aridity
of a mere compendium of facts.

My second purpose is rather more ambitious. In the course of my
narrative I have tried to deal with ideas rather than with mere facts.
I have tried to bring out the political ideas which are implicit in, or
which result from, the conquest of the world by Western civilisation;
and to show how the ideas of the West have affected the outer world,
how far they have been modified to meet its needs, and how they have
developed in the process. In particular I have endeavoured to direct
attention to the significant new political form which we have seen
coming into existence, and of which the British Empire is the oldest
and th