This book explores seventeenth-century English overseas expansion, offering a unique interpretation of the history of the early modern English Empire.

In Advancing Empire, L. H. Roper explores the origins and early development of English overseas expansion. Roper focuses on the networks of aristocrats, merchants, and colonial-imperialists who worked to control the transport and production of exotic commodities, such as tobacco and sugar, as well as the labor required to produce them. He is primarily interested in the relationship between the English state and the people it governed, the role of that state in imperial development, the socio-political character of English colonies and English relations with Asians, Africans, American Indians, and other Europeans overseas. The activities stimulated the expansion and integration of global territorial and commercial interests that became the British Empire in the eighteenth century. In exploring these activities from a wider perspective, Roper offers a novel conclusion that revises popular analyses of the English Empire and of Anglo-America.