At the height of the British Empire, just after the First World War, an island smaller than Kansas controlled roughly a quarter of the world’s population and landmass. To the architects of this ...

British schoolchildren have long been taught comforting fairy tales about the beneficence of the largest empire in history, but recent historical scholarship is painting a quite different picture.

NPR's Ari Shapiro speaks with Matthew J. Smith, director of the Center for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery at University College London, about the commonwealth's complicated history.

As Corbyn rightly notes: “Black history is British history” – and hence its study should be part of the national curriculum, not segregated in a single month each year.

The largest country in the world today is Russia, with about 11% of the global landmass. It was far exceeded by the British Empire, which at its height controlled about a fourth of the world’s ...

“The sun never sets on the British empire.” Variations on the phrase have been used for more than 200 years to describe the scope and power of the nation and its occupied territories.

The British Empire and the Rise of Industry Britain's Empire in 1815 This is the year that marked the end of a prolonged global conflict and saw Britain join the ranks of the great imperial powers.

Ms. Jasanoff, a professor of history at Harvard, is the author of three books about the British Empire and its subjects. “The end of an era” will become a refrain as commentators assess the ...

British schoolchildren have long been taught comforting fairy tales about the beneficence of the largest empire in history, but recent historical scholarship is painting a quite different picture.