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Belich, James. Replenishing the Earth: The Settler Revolution and the Rise of the Anglo-World, 1783-1939. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. ? + 573 pages. Cloth, $50.00.
"Why does so much of the world speak English?" That is the central question behind Wstorian James Belich 's Replenishing the Earth, an impressive comparative account of the settler experience in the nineteenth century and the rise of the Anglo-world. Truth be told there were similar settler experiences during this period: the French in Algeria, the Russians in Siberia, the Chinese in Manchuria, and Italian and Spanish immigrants in Argentina. However, in a matter of factual style remarkable for its elegance and absence of chauvinism, Belich discusses how international relations following the Napoleonic Wars came to be dominated by two English-speaking superpowers: Great Britain and the United States.
The Anglo-world is a geographically fragmented unit comprised of Great Britain, the United States, and the self-governing Dominions (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa). There is a further crucial analytical distinction between the old lands (Great Britain and the eastern seaboard of the United States) and the new lands (Australia, New Zealand, Canada's Ontario and the Prairie Provinces, and the mid-west, central, and western regions of the United States): The old lands were better able to integrate their new lands, and, in the case of the United States, successfully decolonized in economic terms from Great Britain at...