Ten Cities that Made an Empire

 
 
From the publishers:
 
Tristram Hunt examines the stories and defining ideas of ten of the most important: Boston, Bridgetown, Dublin, Cape Town, Calcutta, Hong Kong, Bombay, Melbourne, New Delhi, and twentieth-century Liverpool.
 
Rejecting binary views of the British Empire as 'very good' or 'very bad', Hunt uses an exceptional array of primary accounts and personal reflection to chart the processes of exchange and adaptation that collectively shaped the colonial experience – and, in turn, transformed the culture, economy and identity of the British Isles.
 
 
Tristram Hunt is one of Britain's best known historians. Since 2010 he has been the MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central, and in October 2013 was made Shadow Secretary of State for Education. He is a senior lecturer in British history at Queen Mary, University of London, and has written numerous series for radio and television. He is a regular contributor to the Times, Guardian and Observer, and author of numerous books.