ABC of Queen Victoria's Empire

<i>An ABC of Queen Victoria's Empire</i>offers a provocative rewriting of Mrs. Ernest Ames' <i>ABCs for Baby Patriots</i> (1899). Whimsically illustrated for the nursery or primary school child Ames' book demonstrates how deeply imperialism reached into popular culture during Victoria's reign.<br/><br/>This book presents a rather darker view of Victoria's empire beginning with the wars in Afghanistan and ending with Zam-Zammeh the large-bore cannon that Kipling's hero sat astride at the opening of his 1901 novel Kim. It signposts some of the key events concepts places and people that shaped the turbulent ground of empire across the long 19th century providing a serious counterweight to the notion of imperial conquest as child's play.<br/><br/>With each letter accompanied by a crisp yet historically nuanced account of its subject this unique account is the perfect primer for students taking courses on global imperial and British history.