University Libraries

Empire Online contains primary source documents that span five centuries, charting the story of the rise and fall of empires.

Material in Empire Online has been sourced from a wide range of reputable institutions, with a particularly strong core of documents and images from the British Library, covering the explorations of Columbus, Captain Cook, and others, right through to de-colonisation in the second half of the twentieth century and debates over American Imperialism. There is a good balance between highly indexed manuscript and full text printed material, with a broad range of document types; written by women and men from the European and non-European perspective. The Image Gallery also showcases stunning colour photographs and illustrations from the collection.