Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World

Synopsis

"Let's start with the reviews. When you read them, try to keep in mind the simple fact that this book is both describing an historical era (the British Empire) and assessing it. Not all historians do the latter; and too many are content to do a boring job of the former. I think Ferguson does a superb job on both fronts, but it is nonetheless possible to disagree with his assessment of the empire while admiring his well-paced narrative and lavishly illustrated survey of it. How the Empire came into being; why it was British (as opposed to Spanish, Dutch or other); how it operated; how it was funded; who its beneficiaries were; what it did badly; the horrors of which it was guilty;piracy on high seas, the slave trade, its role in Africa, India, Australia, Ireland and elsewhere: Niall Ferguson captures it all. But not just that..He is interested in applying the lesson of Empire to the world today. It is the modern world, after all, that the Empire shaped for better or worse. And here we arrive at Ferguson's assessment. Readers might take issue with a balance sheet approach to the Empire, and they make take issue with the evaluation itself, but in providing us with such an assessment Ferguson brings the Empire to life in these pages. On net, the Empire was a positive good, if only because "in the end, the British sacrificed her Empire to stop the Germans, Japanese and Italians from keeping theirs. Did not that sacrifice alone expunge all the Empire's other sins?" Ferguson thinks so. I agree. Others may not. You don't need to agree with his conclusions, but you cannot walk away from the question, for now the United States is poised to be an Empire -- an Empire in denial in Ferguson's view -- and whether and to what extent the U.S. should assume, or can assume the role of an imperial power is upon us all. What do you think? This is what Ferguson is asking us to do in this outstanding work, in effecting saying: Here's the historical framework, here's what I make of it. Well, what do you think? Read Empire. Re-read it. Like it or not, the question of Empire is upon us." [Amazon]

RefTags

Released

2004

Location

British Isles

Setting