Tristram Hunt

Friedrich Engels is one of the most attractive and contradictory figures of the nineteenth century. Born to a prosperous mercantile family in west Germany, he spent his career working in the Manchester cotton industry, riding to the Cheshire hounds, and enjoying the comfortable, middle-class life of a Victorian gentleman.

Almost a quarter of a million lives were lost as King and Parliament battled for their religious and political ideals in the English Civil War. This title offers a narrative based on the first-hand accounts of those who witnessed these traumatic events.

From the pioneers of early America to the builders of modern India, from west to east and back again, this book follows the processes of exchange and adaptation that collectively moulded the colonial experience and which in their turn transformed the culture, economy and identity of the British Isles.