England was a late entry in the race to colonize the New World, although its motives-wealth, national glory, religious zeal-were similar to those of the older colonial powers. Still, by the standards of the time, England was a
second-rate power, and it is one of the ironies of history that its colonies not only succeeded, but eventually formed part of an imperial system that would cover half the world.
England's rise to imperial glory resulted, in part, from a series of revolutionary changes in its social, political, and economic structures in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Some…
