The nineteenth century is too often invoked as moment where Britain alone exerted global dominance, without the need for European collaboration. This book shows how this is fundamentally wrong by exploring British collaboration with France between 1848 and 1914. Gillen redefines our understanding of Britain's role in the world in the age of empire.

A historian specializing in nineteenth-century science and technology, Edward J. Gillin is the author of The Victorian Palace of Science (Cambridge University Press, 2017), which explored the science and engineering employed to build Britain's new Houses of Parliament building between 1834 and 1860.