This book gives an account of Britain's rise and fall over the past 200 years, painting a provocative picture of a once great nation reduced to a European statelet. Jeremy Black demonstrates that the nation we know today has outgrown the industrial and commercial empire which once made Britain great throughout the world. As he argues, the achievements and innovations of the great inventors and industrialists were appropriate in their time but Britain is searching for a new role and a new place among the leading nations.