“In June 1840 a fleet of British warships sailed into China’s Pearl River Delta and unleashed a barrage of violence, overwhelming China’s weak coastal defences and bringing the country to its knees.” The First Opium War originated because the British traded opium for tea around the first half of the 1800’s. “At first Britain struggled…

Monday 11 April 2011 The Victorians: Empire and Race Professor Richard J Evans FBA   One of the most obvious and to the twenty-first century mind most ridiculous and annoying traits of the Victorians was their innate sense of the superiority of the British over the inhabitants of other countries. Their arrogance began close to…