What price do states pay for becoming and remaining world powers? Why did the first greatly expanded British Empire collapse so rapidly? Nancy F. Koehn here recounts the urgent challenges that confronted the British in the ten-year period following their overwhelming victory in the Seven Years War. Koehn shows that with great power comes great vulnerability; imperial dominance made novel demands on practical policymaking. In 1763 London gained dominion over lands as vast as Canada and India, as tiny as Tobago and Senegal. As a new colonial power, Britain had to find funds to manage and defend...