Empire: The Rise and Demise Of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power [Paperback]

 

 

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I almost didn't purchase this book, because some professional reviewers denigrated it as an "apology" for the British Empire. I'm glad I didn't listen to those reviewers and, after reading the book, I'm puzzled that anyone could come to that conclusion. Professor Ferguson spends a good portion of the book detailing many of the negative aspects of the Empire- the condescending and racist attitudes, frequently, that were displayed by the British towards subject peoples; the excessive use of force (literally, overkill) in places such as Omdurman (where the British, and their Egyptian and Sudanese auxilliaries, used Maxim machine guns to mow down their Islamic fundamentalist opponents, who were generally armed with rifles and swords. The fundamentalist forces had about 35,000 men killed, while the British lost about 400.) and Amritsar, India (where, in 1919, the British forces broke up a peaceful demonstration by firing on unarmed civilians and killing 379 and injuring 1,500 of them). Professor Ferguson also does not sweep British behavior during the Boer War under the historical carpet. He discusses the concentration camps the British set up to detain the wives and children of Boer soldiers. Conditions, especially in the beginning, were horrendous and many of the women and children died from hunger and disease. (When Sir Nevile Henderson complained to Goering about the Nazi concentration camps, Goering leapt at the chance to take out a German encyclopaedia which, under the entry for concentration camp, said this: "First used by the British in the South African War"). This being said, Professor Ferguson doesn't fail to point out some of the positive accomplishments of the Empire- the introduction of free trade to areas that otherwise would have engaged in protectionism; improvement in the living standards in many of the colonial areas, due to the above and also due to British investment in underdeveloped areas; the creation of infrastructure and the introduction of democracy and Western legal principles, etc. The thing that disturbs me about some of the professional reviews of this book is the tendency to see things in black and white. Empire is bad, and that's all there is to say. Well, most things in life are not black and white. Professor Ferguson spends the majority of the book outlining the bad aspects of the Empire, and he uses maybe 25% of the book to discuss the good things. This book is analytical, well-written (Professor Ferguson has an easy, breezy, informal style and, which is always a bonus in a book written by an academic, a refreshing sense of humor), and thought-provoking. There are also many wonderful color and black-and-white photographs which complement the text nicely. The only reason I didn't give the book 5 stars is that the ending is a bit weak. The book's subtitle is "The Rise And Demise Of The British World Order And The Lessons For Global Power." The conclusion is supposed to provide the lessons, but doesn't. Professor Ferguson makes the mistake of trying to make the book "relevant" to today. He should have left well-enough alone and stuck to just talking about the Empire. He makes the obvious point that the United States is the only nation capable today of having a position of global power equivalent to the position Britain used to hold. Fair enough. But what should the U.S. do with this power? Aye, there's the rub! Professor Ferguson doesn't really know, so he tosses in some vague generalities. He questions whether "...the dissemination of Western 'civilization'...can safely be entrusted to Messrs Disney and McDonald." He goes on to say, "But it (America) is an empire that lacks the drive to export its capital, its people and its culture to those backward regions which need them most urgently and which, if they are neglected, will breed the greatest threats to its security." Well, maybe we should ask some of the people in those "backward" places what THEY want. They probably would like the capital...I'm not so sure about wanting our people and our culture. This whole subject needs a book of its own (probably many books) for a proper discussion. My key point is that Professor Ferguson does himself a disservice by tossing off comments like this, which come across as afterthoughts...especially after the clockwork, smooth analysis which flows through the rest of the book. Still, overall, this is an excellent book for anyone who wants a well-balanced and comprehensive account of the rise and fall of the British Empire.

First, prospective buyers should understand that this is NOT a history of the British Empire, but rather reflections on the empire, and its implications for the modern world, particularly the United States. It is more like a graduate school History seminar in book form, largely set out in fascinating and apt anecdotes, and generously, but never obtrusively, illustrated with a wonderful selection of maps, photos and paintings. Thus, it presumes a fair amount of knowledge of world, and especially British, history. And although I consider myself quite knowledgeable in these matters, I was surprised and delighted with facts and stories I had never come across before, or, perhaps better stated, had never viewed from Ferguson's particular angle. Don't for a minute believe the book is merely the excuse for the TV series: it stands on its own as a refreshing and perceptive treatment of an age that is gone, but on the grand wheel of history, may come again. Ferguson rolls out a parade of small stories and forces the reader, in a most gentle and enjoyable way, to think big. If that single attribute doesn't denote a worthwhile history book, I don't know what does. You won't regret the read.

There are two books here. Niall Ferguson apparently feels no emotional attachment towards the British Empire before the mid to late 19th Century, and the portion of the book dealing that period is straightforward and honest. Both the good (the ending of the slave trade, the banning of the practice of widow-burning in India) and the bad (nearly everything else) are presented, though I think a bit more about the Opium Wars could have been added. But Ferguson wants the reader to appreciate the idealism of the later Empire and in the later parts of the book he starts pulling his punches. The Indian famines so graphically described in Mike Davis's "Late Victorian Holocausts" are barely mentioned--Ferguson informs us that they shouldn't be compared to Nazi crimes because the British didn't intend to kill millions of people. They merely stuck to their free market dogmas no matter how many people were dying. (One could say the same about Mao, who also didn't mean to cause 10-30 million to starve to death in the Great Leap Forward). Ferguson spends pages on the tortures inflicted on British POW's by the undeniably savage Japanese militarists, but neglects to mention India's last great famine under British rule in 1943, which took 3 million lives.

Ferguson is probably right that the British Empire had a mixed record of good and evil, but I've seen exactly the same case made for the rule of Mao Zedong. Yes, so the argument goes, Mao caused tens of millions of deaths with his policies, but even with all those deaths life expectancy in China doubled during his rule. But no sensible person thinks that one fact cancels out the other. The same could be said about Ferguson's beloved Empire and in fact at one point he does point to the increase in life expectancy in India under British rule. But one can't whitewash great crimes with great accomplishments.

All that said, I think this was a highly informative book, though readers are learning less about the dark side of the Empire than they might realize. (Imagine a history of Mao's China which relegated the massive famine of the Great Leap Forward to one footnote.) But one shouldn't take Ferguson's moral pronouncements very seriously.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding
Niall Ferguson's `Empire: How Britain made the modern world' is a remarkable, very well-researched, and well-argued piece of historical work as well as a gripping and easy to read... Read more

Published 10 months ago by Carl

3.0 out of 5 stars A concise history from a particular viewpoint
This book presented a concise history of the British Empire from a (usually) more balanced viewpoint. Read more

Published 22 months ago by Philip C. Mooney

4.0 out of 5 stars Deconstructing Anglobalization
There are plenty of reviews so I will keep this one brief. I picked up this book in preparation for a course I will be taking this upcoming semester. Read more

Published on Dec 15 2008 by Coach C

5.0 out of 5 stars Ultimate Victory of the Disintegrated British Empire
Niall Ferguson has written a well-balanced portrait of the rise and fall of the British Empire. Ferguson does not downplay at all the sins of the British administration in its... Read more

Published on July 19 2004 by Serge J. Van Steenkiste

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing, lacks some fine points
THis tour de force traces the rise and decline of the British empire and emphatically argues that although not always wonderful the British empire was the best alternative to... Read more

Published on July 19 2004 by Seth J. Frantzman

1.0 out of 5 stars Dreadful apologia for empire
In this book of the TV series, Ferguson attempts to survey the British Empire's history and impact on the world. Read more

Published on July 5 2004 by William Podmore

4.0 out of 5 stars Stimulating Reading
* Niall Ferguson's EMPIRE, subtitled "The Rise & Demise Of The British
World Order & The Lessons For Global Power", was published in 2002 as
a companion to a BBC TV... Read more

Published on Jun 20 2004 by Greg Goebel

3.0 out of 5 stars Rule Britannia ifrom the Scotch Scholar Ferguson
Rule Britannia. In this well done historical work Professor Ferguson draws lessons from the years when the British nation stood supreme as an empirial colossus. Read more

Published on Jun 16 2004 by C. M Mills

5.0 out of 5 stars Lessons to be learned aplenty!
This is a very well written book: very well paced along threehundredandsome years/pages of British imperial history, erudite and analytical, and defiant of templates thus unlike... Read more

Published on Jun 4 2004 by fCh

5.0 out of 5 stars Lessons to be learned aplenty!
This is a very well written book: very well paced along threehundredandsome years/pages of British imperial history, erudite and analytical, and defiant of templates thus unlike... Read more

Published on Jun 2 2004 by fCh

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