What enabled the British Empire to really dominate the Age of Colonialism?

[lfromnj]

Lets look at the other major players in the age of Colonialism.
Almost all of them had a reset during the Napoleonic wars where they lost most of their territories or sold them . Britain with its Navy managed to stay out of the fray and come out on top

Political stability also helps . Britain didn't have a civil war past 1650 and its transition to a constitutional monarchy in 1689 was peaceful . Rather than the rapid swings between liberalism and reactionaries Britain kept a steady and slow trend of liberalism and avoided years such as 1848 .
France- already infamous
Spain- The war of the Spanish Succession along with the Trieno Liberal from 1820 to 1823 when Spain gave up on many of its colonies.
Other countries like Italy/Germany weren't unified.
Arguably the other great dominator of the Age of Colonialism is actually Russia, It kept all its colonies it gained in the 18th century all the way up to 1991. However Russia was all land based and almost the opposite of Britain in everyway which is interesting.

[lfromnj]

Lets look at the other major players in the age of Colonialism.
Almost all of them had a reset during the Napoleonic wars where they lost most of their territories or sold them . Britain with its Navy managed to stay out of the fray and come out on top

Political stability also helps . Britain didn't have a civil war past 1650 and its transition to a constitutional monarchy in 1689 was peaceful . Rather than the rapid swings between liberalism and reactionaries Britain kept a steady and slow trend of liberalism and avoided years such as 1848 .
France- already infamous
Spain- The war of the Spanish Succession along with the Trieno Liberal from 1820 to 1823 when Spain gave up on many of its colonies.
Other countries like Italy/Germany weren't unified.
Arguably the other great dominator of the Age of Colonialism is actually Russia, It kept all its colonies it gained in the 18th century all the way up to 1991. However Russia was all land based and almost the opposite of Britain in everyway which is interesting.

Saying Russia was a colonist power is like saying the US was a colonist power with Manifest Destiny. Both are technically true but not in the same way as British/French/Spanish/Dutch colonies

Russia and the US were trying to expand their nation states and turn their natives into "Russians/Americans". Hence the expansion being mostly land based.

No one considered Kenya to be an extension of Great Britain. It was a colony of Great Britain.

Cool to hear that Algeria wasn't a colony but rightful French territory .

[lfromnj]

Lfromj makes a great point about Britain's political stability, but personally I'd point to geography as a huge factor as well.

Britain was well-positioned in that it was culturally and economically a part of Europe and took part in the military, economic, and intellectual trends of the time, and yet as an island nation it was harder to invade and could place a greater emphasis on its navy than its competitors. Obviously, having a strong navy is a huge advantage in establishing and defending a far-flung empire, but so too is the natural protection from invasion. Contrast with the Netherlands and especially Portugal, whose colonial empires were negatively impacted by their having to contend with larger, more powerful neighbors.

On the flips side, Britain's general lack of continental ambitions after the 15th century served its colonial ambitions well. Although post-1689 Britain did have some German and Dutch rulers who were still concerned with the continent, and it certainly did get involved in some continental wars which took their toll, in general Britain could at least avoid the worst of the fighting in e.g. the Thirty Year's War and the Napoleonic Wars. These continental ambitions played a huge role in the decline of Spain (whose Habsburg rulers were constantly trying to defend their European empire and staunch the tide of Protestantism) and to a lesser extent France (who was largely stripped of its first colonial empire after the Seven Years War and Napoleonic Wars, but who, unlike Spain, was still powerful enough to gain new colonies in the 19th century).

A third major reason was economics, in particular Britain's status as the epicenter of the Industrial Revolution beginning in the mid-18th century. This answer is long enough already so perhaps I'll add to it later, but the tldr is that a lot of British expansionism was driven by its desire to control new territories to provide resources and markets for British manufactured goods. A great exploration of this in the 19th century is the book "Empire of Cotton" by Sven Beckert.

To go further on economics there was also the banking system the British had which ties in with their political system. Rather than being controlled by an absolute monarch England was more of a broad oligarchy which meant you could safely loan around.  The fact that the UK had so many powerful financial instruments such as banking,loans, insurance etc really gave it an edge in stability and the power to finance their colonies. The Rothschilds unironically won the Napoleonic wars.

[lfromnj]

Lets look at the other major players in the age of Colonialism.
Almost all of them had a reset during the Napoleonic wars where they lost most of their territories or sold them . Britain with its Navy managed to stay out of the fray and come out on top

Political stability also helps . Britain didn't have a civil war past 1650 and its transition to a constitutional monarchy in 1689 was peaceful . Rather than the rapid swings between liberalism and reactionaries Britain kept a steady and slow trend of liberalism and avoided years such as 1848 .
France- already infamous
Spain- The war of the Spanish Succession along with the Trieno Liberal from 1820 to 1823 when Spain gave up on many of its colonies.
Other countries like Italy/Germany weren't unified.
Arguably the other great dominator of the Age of Colonialism is actually Russia, It kept all its colonies it gained in the 18th century all the way up to 1991. However Russia was all land based and almost the opposite of Britain in everyway which is interesting.

Saying Russia was a colonist power is like saying the US was a colonist power with Manifest Destiny. Both are technically true but not in the same way as British/French/Spanish/Dutch colonies

Russia and the US were trying to expand their nation states and turn their natives into "Russians/Americans". Hence the expansion being mostly land based.

No one considered Kenya to be an extension of Great Britain. It was a colony of Great Britain.

Not to call you out again but something hillarious I just realized is that the British are blamed for drawing borders poorly resulting in the India Pakistan and the Israel Palestine conflicts but the Soviets also drew borders even worse and perhaps on purpose to divide and conquer .
1. Armenia Azerbaijan
2. The Fergana Valley in Central Asia with all the stans.
3. Kruschchevs giving Crimea to Ukraine. This last one did not have bad intentions though.