I had previously read The Age of Reconnaissance by this author, which I thought was really good. I was expecting this book to be equally educational, but it fell a good way short of those hopes. The first problem, as I see it, is that this book only deals with one century, the eighteenth. This seems to have led the author away from the panoramic historical views of the Age of Reconnaissance, and closer to minute historical trivialities. The second problem is that the emphasis lies a bit too much on England for my taste. Perhaps this is to some extent justified because England rose to global prominence in this century, but the author adopts an unfortunate habit of discussing the actions of various famous English personages in far too much detail. The intended audience of this book seems to be very much British.

Still, this book can only be blamed for an excessively national vantage point in comparison to The Age of Reconnaissance. In comparison to the average book on colonial history, its scope certainly is very general and broad. There were many sections which I enjoyed reading. The author can write a good narrative, even though he at times veers into a bit too much detail. In conclusion, this is probably a great book for British readers who want to study global colonial history in the eighteenth century. And it is a reasonably good book even for other readers interested in the period, but they may have to skip some sections where the author starts to wax poetic about the deeds and personalities of "Pitt the elder" or Cornwallis.