The British Empire was the largest and perhaps most significant in history and until its demise the foremost global power. Although the roots of British expansion lay in the era prior, late nineteenth-century New Imperialism produced the unprecedented pursuit of what has been termed “empire for empire's sake”—aggressive competition for overseas territorial acquisitions and the emergence in colonizing countries of doctrines of racial superiority which denied the fitness of subjugated peoples for self-government.

The growing emotional phenomenon of the nationalist spirit further strengthened this expansive mood, justified not only by great achievements in industrial technology, but perhaps moreso by the relative ease with which Britain seemed to expand itself into the cultural life of the rest of the world.


Where steampunk is predominantly British and set during the nineteenth century, its Empire is inevitably of influence, whether its tales are set in Imperialist Britain or its colonies or when attesting to the attitudes and perceptions of its protagonists. Often the might and majesty of Britain’s realm permit the conception of technology extraordinary and inconceivable even at the time in reality. Steampunk explores the potential of British industry and fulfils the Promises of its Progress. It embraces a time of romance, in which Britannia Waived the Rules and true Ladies and Gentlemen wandered the globe in pursuit of Adventure.