5. Imperialism

After the loss of the American colonies in 1776, Britain built a “Second British Empire”, based on the colonies in India, Asia, Australia, Canada. The crown jewel was India, where in the 1750s a private British company, with its own army, the East India Company （or “John Company”）, took control of much of India. The 19th century saw Company rule extended across India after expelling the Dutch, French and Portuguese. By the 1830s the John Company was a government and had given up most of its business in India, bit it was still privately owned. Following the Indian Rebellion of 1857 the government closed down the John Company and took control of the British Raj.

Free trade （with no tariffs and few trade barriers） was introduced in the 1840s. Protected by the overwhelming power of the Royal Navy, the economic empire included very close economic ties with independent nations in Latin America. The informal economic empire has been called “the Imperialism of Free Trade.”