Status
Available
Call number
Publication
New York Vintage Books, 2010.
Description
After the American Revolution, the British Empire appeared doomed. But over the next 150 years it grew to become the greatest and most diverse empire the world has ever seen--from Canada to Australia to China, India, and Egypt--seven times larger than the Roman Empire at its apogee. Yet it was also fundamentally weak, as Piers Brendon shows in this panoramic chronicle. Run from a tiny island base, it operated on a shoestring with the help of local elites. It enshrined a belief in freedom that would fatally undermine its authority. Spread too thin, and facing wars, economic crises, and domestic discord, the empire would vanish almost as quickly as it appeared. Within a generation, it collapsed, sometimes amid bloodshed, leaving unfinished business in Rhodesia, the Falklands, and Hong Kong. Above all, it left a contested legacy: at best, a sporting spirit, a legal code, and a near-universal language; at worst, failed states and internecine strife.--From publisher description.… (more)
Media reviews
Piers Brendon's prodigious volume is a brilliant account of acts two, three and four in this swelling drama of imperial themes from Yorktown to Goose Green. Despite his title, he knows he is not Edward Gibbon and is the first to concede that Decline and Fall casts a long shadow. While he has
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resisted 'setting up as a rival' to the choleric county colonel and his rolling Augustan narrative of Roman decline, the awesome scale of a subject that includes Africa, the Far East and the Antipodes compels the faithful narrator into an enthralling mini-series of colonial adventure from Plessey to Omdurman, via the Zulu wars (Rorke's Drift) and Baden-Powell's defence of Mafeking. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member zen_923
This book is well-written and informative. It does a good job of providing everything you can ask for. It gives you a good overview of the history of the british empire. It provides mini-biographies of the major political figures as well as key summaries of the major events. It provides anecdotes
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from people both inside and outside the british empire. It also provides a good social history by telling you something about how ordinary people in the British empire lived.The only price you pay for all these is that the book is long and can become repetitive and tedious to read a times, but overall This book is a masterpiece of political and social history Show Less
LibraryThing member jerry-book
This author has a bias against the British Empire. Nonetheless, this was informative. I liked Jan Morris' more positive treatment of the same material. The point of view of this author is exemplified by the cover picture which shows a group of drunken colonial officers.
LibraryThing member kerns222
Big-picture narrative history starting with the colonies that rebelled in America and the colonial decline dread that followed, only to be dispelled when the Brits red coats puffed out after nipping Napoleon. Book is filled in with tiny details excerpted from period documents that make it feel
Brenden explains how the empire was always fated to fail. He does this continuously. He tells its racism, its greed, its theft, its moralistic overlay that could never cover its actions. He damns it over and over and then pops up and says "but the British did" --and he lists some railroad or another.
Perfect for a long long vacation read.
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snappy at times.Brenden explains how the empire was always fated to fail. He does this continuously. He tells its racism, its greed, its theft, its moralistic overlay that could never cover its actions. He damns it over and over and then pops up and says "but the British did" --and he lists some railroad or another.
Perfect for a long long vacation read.
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LibraryThing member kaitanya64
This is a wide-ranging and ambitious book about a topic that I personally find fascinating.Overall, it is terrific, so let me point out the one or two small flaws that keep me from a five star rating. Because the books range is so wide, naturally there are limits to what the author could cover
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thoroughly. So there are few places where I caught him taking some research "short cuts," i.e. using fictional accounts as examples without clearly indicating that they were fiction. If this were a history textbook, this would be inexcusable, but since the fictional sources were clearly cited for the careful reader to identify and this is, after all, a readable popular account rather than an academic text, I think these are minor problems in an otherwise remarkably well-written and readable book. Show Less
LibraryThing member dcunning11235
This book was dense. I liked it, but it took me 2 months to read it (granted, with much else going on).
It's definitely one of those books written from the stance that there are no good guys in history. Well, people that do good, but... Eh.
Very interesting; while the US has never had the colonial
But dense!
It's definitely one of those books written from the stance that there are no good guys in history. Well, people that do good, but... Eh.
Very interesting; while the US has never had the colonial
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reach of GB, there are definitely some parallels (some). In that thread, it is interesting to become aware of ones own thinking following earlier reflections re: The decline of Romam Empire --> The decline of the British Empire --> The decline of the US... Hegemony.But dense!
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Subjects
Awards
Duke of Wellington Medal for Military History (Shortlist — 2008)
Language
Original publication date
2007
Physical description
1122 p.; 21 inches
ISBN
0307388417 / 9780307388414
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