A major study of the impact of Renaissance humanism upon the English colonization of America.

Andrew Fitzmaurice was formerly a Junior Research Fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge, and is currently a Lecturer in History at Sydney University. This is his first book.

Acknowledgements; 1. Introduction; 2. The moral philosophy of Tudor colonisation; 3. The moral philosophy of Jacobean colonisation; 4. Rhetoric - 'not the words, but the acts'; 5. Law and history; 6. The Machiavellian argument for colonial possession; 7. Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.