Product Description

The reissue of a Simon Winchester classic In 1985 Simon Winchester, struck by a sudden need to discover exactly what was left of the British Empire travelled 100,000 miles back and forth from Antarctica to the Caribbean to visit the far-flung islands that are all that remain of what once made Britain great. His adventures in these distant and forgotten ends of the earth make compelling and often funny reading. With a new introduction and additional material in many of the chapters, this revised edition tells us what has happened while the author's been away.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #42050 in Books
• Published on: 2003-06-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

About the Author
Simon Winchester was born and educated in England, has lived in Africa, Ireland, India and China, and now lives in US. He was a foreign correspondent for 30 years and now contributes to a variety of American and British magazines and newspapers. Hismost recent books have been the two international bestsellers, The Surgeon of Crowthorne and The Map that Changed the World. His new book, Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded is published in June 2002.

Customer Reviews

Harkening to the last, faint echoes of "Rule Britannia"
In 1914, the globe was spanned by the British Empire, on which the sun truly never set. As a boy, I collected stamps, and I was in awe of the number of faraway and exotic places that featured the likeness of the British monarch on their issues. It was, perhaps, these colorful bits of paper, along with the tales of Robin Hood, Richard the Lionheart, and King Arthur that engendered in me a lasting love for and fascination with Great Britain. I've visited the mother island on more than a dozen occasions; I long to be there now. Simon Winchester's OUTPOSTS took me in a different direction - outward to the last vestiges of Empire.

British Indian Ocean Territory, Tristan da Cunha, Gibraltar, Ascension Island, St. Helena, Hong Kong, Bermuda, Turks and Caicos Islands, the British Virgin Islands, Anguilla, Montserrat, the Cayman Islands, the Falkland Islands, and the Pitcairn Islands. These, minus Hong Kong - OUTPOSTS was published in 1985 - are now all that are left of the once proud imperial possessions. Simon visited them over a three year period, except the inaccessible Pitcairn, and tells us about his odyssey in this sterling travel narrative.

Winchester, a Brit himself, is ambiguous about the Empire. On one hand, he apparently feels that the Crown's dominions, protectorates, trustee states, mandated territories and colonies were better left to go their separate ways, if only for the sake of political correctness. On the other hand, he maintains that, of all the European colonial empires, Britain's was the one administered with the greatest degree of good intentions. And, Simon isn't above becoming sentimental, as on Tristan da Cunha, a dependency of St. Helena, during a visit by the Colonial Governor:

"A bugle was blown, a banner was raised, a salute was made, an anthem was played - and the Colonial Governor of St. Helena was formally welcomed on to the tiniest and loneliest dependency in the remanent British Empire. I found I was watching it through a strange golden haze, which cleared if I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand: the children looked so proud, so eager to please, so keen to touch the hand from England, from the wellspring of their official existence."

The volume contains a rudimentary map of each colony visited, but no photographs - a deplorable deficiency in any travel essay, I think. I had to go onto the Web to satisfy my curiosity for visuals; the Tristan de Cunha, St.Helena, and Falkland Islands websites are particularly helpful in this regard.

OUTPOSTS is, of course, dated; Hong Kong has long since reverted to the mandarins in Peking. Luckily, I was able to visit the place in 1994 when it was still a jewel in the British crown. Oddly, the chapter on HK is surprisingly short considering the size and importance of the place at the time the book was written. Winchester didn't even mention one of the best E-rides in the world, the short Star Ferry trip from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island.

One of the best reasons to read OUTPOSTS, if your interested in the subject, is the history of each colony that the author shares. And then there's the occasional trivia. Did you know, for example, that during the Falkland Islands War a team of Argentine frogman arrived in Spain with plans to blow up Royal Navy ships anchored off Gibraltar? They were arrested by the Spanish police on a tip from British Intelligence. And, do you know the location of the only land border between Holland and France? It's not where you might think.

OUTPOSTS grandly took me to places I shall likely never visit, and I'm indebted to Winchester for that.

Outposts
After holidaying in Mauritius this year, I came across the story of Diego Garcia and how the islanders were so badly treated by the British Government. Then amazingly I picked up Outposts in the bookshop and discovered that the first place mentioned in Simon Winchester's book was Diego Garcia. I had to buy it to find out more. If you only buy the book to find out more about this travesty of justice, then it is well worth it and I would recommend it on that alone. However the book mentions other far flung parts the remains of the British Empire and it is the smaller, lonelier places that capture the imagination - St. Helena, Tristan da Cunha, and Ascension Island. Thank you to Simon Winchester for a book that satisfied my curiosity about these places and awakened an interest in finding out more about peolpe and places off the beaten track.

Outposts
Having visited some of the far-flung places mentioned in Outposts I was really floored by Winchester's style and prose: he brings these remote islands alive whilst telling a very readable, factual yet humorous tale of the inhabitants of Britain's remaining colonies, their lives and the daily issues they face.

Brilliantly written (his journalistic background readily apparent) and extremely captivating, Outposts is a wonderful insight into these remote patriots on their remote outcrops.

Harry Ritchie writes on a similar line in his book The Last Pink Bits, yet his research is noticeably less than Winchester's, by far. His tone at the start even appears one of mild annoyance at having to travel the world on the subject (surely his own idea?!) to the extent that I actually wondered why he bothered. TV presenter and housewife heart- throb Ben Fogle also attempts a work entitled The Teatime Islands. Although a brave start to his writing career, I believe him better suited to his Prince William impression whilst presenting Animal Thingy on TV, affable though he seems.

Outposts is an extremely well-leafed book in my collection which I keep revisiting. I cannot recommend it highly enough for those interested in travel, empire and history.