The colonial history of China is particularly important as we consider her rise on the world stage once again. Readers of this blog may remember my brief discussion about The Silk Road early at the outset of these discussions of world history. Before the advent of national economic statistics across the world, it was impossible to measure the comparative wealth of different peoples. Yet, the evidence we do possess shows that China and India were considerably more wealthy than anywhere else in the world until Britain invaded China in the 1840s.

Many historians have detailed the long history of colonisation by the Irish in the Americas and later in India. In this blog, I summarise some of the key themes of the process of the colonisation of Ireland. If we are to understand colonisation in the Americas we must understand Britain’s first colony, that is, Ireland. Ireland has been unique in British history. Ireland has always been deeply foreign to the British despite her geographical closeness to the mainland of Britain.