A rich, vivid history of the rise and fall of the first British Empire and the European alliances that supported it This highly original, extremely enjoyable book tells the story of Britain's extraordinary scramble to world power in the eighteenth century and how, through hubris and incompetence, it lost almost everything it had gained. 'Studded with brilliant vignettes and arresting insights, Simms's marvellous narrative presents an original and provocative account not only of the rise and decline of British eighteenth-century imperial power, but also of the processes that formed the modern global system' Christopher Clark, author of Iron Kingdom