 | Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com | At its peak in the nineteenth century, the British Empire was the largest empire ever known, governing roughly a quarter of the world's population. In Empire, Niall Ferguson explains how "an archipelago of rainy islands... came to rule the world," and examines the costs and consequences, both good and bad, of British imperialism. Though the book's breadth is impressive, it is not intended to be a comprehensive history of the British Empire; rather, Ferguson seeks to glean lessons from this history for future, or present, empires--namely America. Pointing out that the U.S. is both a product of the British Empire as well as an heir to it, he asks whether America--an "empire in denial"--should "seek to shed or to shoulder the imperial load it has inherited." As he points out in this fascinating book, there is compelling evidence for both. Observing that "the difficulty with the achievements of empire is that they are much more likely to be taken for granted than the sins of empire," Ferguson stresses that the British did do much good for humanity in their quest for domination: promotion of the free movement of goods, capital, and labor and a common rule of law and governance chief among them. "The question is not whether British imperialism was without blemish. It was not. The question is whether there could have been a less bloody path to modernity," he writes. The challenge for the U.S., he argues, is for it to use its undisputed power as a force for positive change in the world and not to fall into some of the same traps as the British before them. Covering a wide range of topics, including the rise of consumerism (initially fueled by a desire for coffee, tea, tobacco, and sugar), the biggest mass migration in history (20 million emigrants between the early 1600s and the 1950s), the impact of missionaries, the triumph of capitalism, the spread of the English language, and globalization, this is a brilliant synthesis of various topics and an extremely entertaining read. --Shawn Carkonen |
Average Customer Rating:   The sun, Niall, has set. Niall Ferguson's EMPIRE is a well-research apologia for British colonialism. He makes a case that the world might be a better place due to the British Empire but this reader remains unconvinced. Ferguson compares the atrocities of the Japanese in Nanjing with the lesser British atrocities of the Boer War; pointing out that there was a British outcry against their own acts. He ponders how much worse India would have been under the French or Dutch or even the Mughals. But what would India be like today if it had not been colonized? Is it not possible that it would have evolved into a strong culturally cohesive nation? And he congratulates the British for turning against slavery after a century of being the world's biggest slavers.
I have one quibble where he claims that Nepal was colonized by England, not true. A fresh examination of the legacy of empire from an original & controversial historian Niall Ferguson is a young, brilliant, prolific and rather controversial Professor of History who steps outside conventional academic thinking and argues convincingly for a more enlightened and overarching appreciation of historical events. He is a true original, a great writer and communicator who brings a fresh perspective to make us re-think history and appreciate the past in a new light.
The subject of this book, one of his best - and they're all good - is a new historical examination of the British Empire. The full title is 'The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power' which indicates the author's ambition. Ferguson argues convincingly that between about 1750 and 1945, and expecially so in the 1800s, this unique institution which brought together a quarter of the world's population and spanned every continent was 'the nearest thing Planet Earth has ever had to a global government.' This he sees, overall, as A Good Thing, so firmly places himself amongst modern thinkers in the 'controversial' camp.
It has been claimed that the British acquired their enormous global Empire 'in a fit of absence of mind' and though Ferguson does not agree with this memorable line he does illustrate with some humour that there was never any intention to end up owning 25% of the world. In the 1500s and 1600s the Brits just didn't want to be marginalised into a second-rate power by the Spanish, the Portuguese and the Dutch who at that time were striding the globe and claiming vast areas of land in the Caribbean, the Americas and the East Indies. the Brits were Johnny-come-lately and almost got left behind, initially resorting to piracy on the Spanish to try and claim a small piece of the action. From this robbery-on-the-high-seas in the 1500s came possession of islands in the Caribbean, outposts in North America and West Africa and later involvement in the transatlantic slave trade in the 1700s.
Each chapter introduces a new theme and all-in-all the narrative is racy, informative and crammed with astounding facts, like the details of the examination which prospective bright young men from Britain were obliged to pass before being considered for a posting to the Indian civil service. There are pages of graphs and charts, economic data a-plenty and the book (the hardback edition) is beautifully and lavishly illustrated.
The chapter on the American War of Independence convincingly explains the conflict as a civil war/family quarrel. Against the more conventional revisionist modern American narrative of 'freedom' and 'independence' Ferguson points out the 'revolution' was more about colonial plantation owners ruthlessly promoting their own financial interests. The government in Britain was half-hearted about keeping the 13 colonies and more interested in India, a perspective which looks odd from our time but made absolute sense in 1776 (India looked like a much bigger prize and far more important). The necessary resources were never committed and so Britain lost the then-insignificant American colonies but ended up administering not only India but Canada.
Ferguson does not play down the less benign aspects of the Empire, whether the slave trade (learned by British sea captains from the Spanish, Portuguese and West Africans who taught them how to be successful at it), famines in India and Ireland caused by mismanagement and neglect, the penal colonies of Australia or hordes of Zulus being mown down by Maxim guns. There's enough gory statistics here to keep any unreconstituted liberal or left-inclined activist foaming with indignation.
However, that's not the whole story. Ferguson demonstrates that the British Empire was a huge net exporter of capital, and that the economic and social differences in the heyday of the Empire between the British Isles and the colonies were consequently far less than between the 'first world' and the 'developing world' in the 21st century. Roads, railways, educational and government institutions were built throughout the Empire with the transfer of vast sums of money earned from British industrial manufacturing out to the colonies, all administered (in stark contrast to modern times) by a virtually incorruptible and principled civil service. There were no 'failed states' in the days of the Empire: in contrast investment, progress and growth were the order of the day, and universally taken for granted. It was, for example, the British Empire which first connected up the world with undersea telegraph cables leading, eventually, to our current global telephone system (and to the www and the internet - the author refers to the global undersea telegraph network as the 'information superhighway' of its day).
Other legacies of the Empire include the global dominance of the English language, the acceptance of democratic parliamentary institutions, the whole Anglo-Saxon concept of human and civil rights and free trade and movement of peoples.
As other reviewers have pointed out, Ferguson's analysis of the Empire's eventual demise centres on Britain deciding to commit to fight and defeat the powerful but less benign empires of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, struggles which effectively bankrupted Britain and forced imperial dissolution. The Empire was expensive to run: after 1945, Britain was broke and could no longer afford the vast subsidies and drain on capital necessary to sustain it. He also demonstrates that until the 1920s there was virtually no appetite for 'independence' from the peoples of the Empire. On the contrary they thought they had a good thing: it was in all cases anglicised, British-university educated middle-class elites from the colonies who embraced quintessentially western liberal ideas of 'independence' following WW1, and went on to sieze power in the new 'independent' nations.
A final and relevant question asked by the author is: without the British Empire, what would the world have had instead? Would the available alternatives have produced a similar end-result, or something far worse?
Whether you embrace the author's mainly positive attitude to the idea of a benign global hegemony in place of (according to him) the present-day reality of a fragmented world of 180+ squabbling/warring nation states with mainly corrupt and unelected rulers, the book is a great read: lively, literate, occasionally funny and thought-provoking. The reader can't fail to be impressed by Ferguson's achievement even if he rejects the author's self-confessed bias: 'How Britain made the modern world' really is not an overstatement. It's a rollicking good read and I defy any open-minded reader not to enjoy the experience and learn more than a few things in the process. The prose is first-rate, it's a can't-put-it-down page-turner, and the vast amounts of economic data (which the author always makes interesting and relevant) alone are so enlightening they are worth the price of the book.
Sometimes it's good to be mildly controversial, if accompanied by intelligence and original thought. Recommended unreservedly.
Excellent - Highly Recommended. A truly fascinating account of the British Empire from it's infancy to it's undoing. I can say that I honestly enjoyed this read from cover to cover. Rather than a dull historical account, the author writes in a manner that puts the reader in a front row seat of the Empire's evolution; there were times when I was literally on the edge of my seat. As an American, it was especially intriguing to read of our "fight for independence" from the British perspective. Ferguson closes with a thought provoking analysis of contemporary America and her responsibilities as an emerging modern-empire. The book has drastically changed how I view the British Empire - for the better I might add.
HOW NOT TO RUN AN EMPIRE! Book title - - EMPIRE: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order & the Lessons for Global Power, by Niall Ferguson.
As the title suggests this is not a book for a light read on the plane to the holiday hotel. Nevertheless, for those interested in the 'politics of power' at a global level then this tome certainly touches the core elements of the amazing success that was the international economic-financial British Empire.
The jacket blurb makes claims about it being insightful for the present situation the USA finds itself in, but frankly I think that is a tad far-fetched. Whilst the USA is indeed the global superpower of the the start of the 21st Century it is a long, long way from being the mega-power that was Britain at the zenith of its imperial might.
The demise of the British Empire is well explained although there are no new or unique insights, but again the decline is not really a lesson for the USA for all the author's attempts to make it seem so.
Our World has changed beyond all recognition from Kitchener's machine-gun army crushing the Madhi's hordes at Omdurman: Anyone who considers the USA's Afghanistan or Iraq campaigns of the last decade will recognise the differences. Similarly, the World has emerging global powers soon to be on a par with the USA in economic-financial terms which the British Empire to a large extent only had to deal with after WW1.
Then if we consider the Internet communication to which this is penned the predicament of the 2010 USA compared to the 'steam-boat' and 'telegraph' of old is highlighted even more.
All that said, this is a thoroughly readable, informative and evocative book about the often unheeded hazards and dangers of imperialism and whilst the USA is surely not condemned to repeat or experience them all there are salutary lessons for the Obama White House on what are the positives and negatives of trying to maintain a global presence when your backyard infrastructure is crumbling and under siege from within and without. Mercantilism and East India Company The sun never set on the British empire, was the popular saying. This book traces the evolution of that empire, the economic underpinnings and the evolution of mercantilism and trade barriers.
This book is a serious economic historical account of the events that lead to the rise of the British Empire and how Britania came to rule the waves. I was most amused to see the reproduction of the portrait of King Neptune relinquishing his sea kingdom to Britannia. Also I found a similar parallels when the sugar, caffeine, spice, opium and calico rush lead to the outflow of British Gold that lead to the creation of mercantilism leading to the East India Company and the British Empire. I found similarities in this book to the Mercantilism and the East India Trade, in the account of the silver and gold being demanded in Indian trade. |  |
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