Product Description

The British Empire was the biggest empire in all history. At its peak it governed a quarter of the world's land and people and dominated all its seas. Though little now remains of the Empire as a political power, its legacy is all around us. It laid the foundation for the global triumph of capitalism. It gave the world its common language, English. It exported both Protestantism and parliaments. And it defeated a succession of rival empires from the Habsburgs' to Hitler's. In the 21st century another English-speaking superpower seems to bestride the globe. But today's American empire was yesterday's British colony. For better and for worse, the world we now know is in large measure the product of Britain's Age of Empire. How did a rainy island in the North Atlantic manage to achieve all this? What were the special factors that enabled Britain to make the modern world - and made the modern world so British? These are the crucial questions addressed by Niall Ferguson in "Empire". This was the first age of globalization. But it was, says Ferguson, globalization with gunboats. This text shows how the British wrested power from their rivals by a combination of imitation and intimidation. It shows how mass migration from Britain turned the American and Australian continents white - and how the missionary movement sought to enlighten the "dark" continents of Africa and Asia. Above all, "Empire" explains how the British Empire rose - and why it finally fell. Ferguson's answers are controversial but compelling.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #161665 in Books
• Published on: 2003-11-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 416 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Niall Ferguson's compelling tour de force, Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World is published to coincide with a Channel 4 TV series. Ferguson, author of The Pity of War and The Cash Nexus, does not so much provide a synoptic survey of the British empire since the 17th century, as an arresting argument about why it arose, and how it fell. Ferguson's emphasis throughout is on the pursuit of economic profit and military might.

Piracy overseas and a taste for sugar and spice at home, combined with an unerring ability to vanquish rival European powers such as the Dutch and French in the dash for stash and status across the globe. But Ferguson is also alive to the peculiarities of British dominion: the manly and Christian civil service--less than a thousand strong--who ruled India, missionaries such as Livingstone, who explored and mapped as they preached and the barons of empire--Rhodes, Curzon, and Kitchener--who found in empire an outlet for their homoeroticism.

The book is brilliant and persuasive on trade and buccaneering before 1750, on India, on the late Victorian imperial mentalité, and on the two world wars, but less convincing on the empire of white settlement, and strangely silent on the most difficult colony of all, Ireland. In the end, Ferguson's penchant for polemic gets the upper-hand--the book closes with a controversial balance-sheet of the gains and losses of the British imperial experience--but he provides a riveting read nonetheless. --Miles Taylor

The Times, January 8, 2003
Ferguson is the most brilliant British historian of his generation ... he writes with splendid panache...the Errol Flynn of British historians

The FT Weekend, January 4, 2003
an excellent guide to ... the imperial experience... an impressive synthesis, it is also a perceptive and original work ... this marvellous book

Customer Reviews

Short, original and readable but no references!
This book is only about 400 pages long but manages to cover the whole history of the British Empire in depth. There is a startling fact on almost every page. Loads to think about, since Ferguson has some original ideas. Readable prose - I would even call this book a page-turner. And the book is well organised, with each chapter having its own theme, and the conclusion being that whatever suffering the Empire caused, viewed in the light of the plausible historical alternatives (for example, French, Russian, German or Japanese hegemony) it was a Good Thing.

This doesn't mean that Ferguson glosses over or excuses the bad points of the Empire. There is a lot in here that is shocking.

I have only one criticism of this book. Ferguson loves to quote people or texts but he never gives references! This is unforgivable in a history book, even a "popular" one.

popular history at its best
Apart from some isolated facts, I knew next to nothing about the British Empire before having read this book. Now I have done so I can honestly say that I at least feel to have (more than) a grasp of the basic facts, and a very good general overview of the biggest empire ever: how it came about, how it evolved, and how it came to end. And what's more, Ferguson tells this incredible tale in a most engaging and lucid style. Never a dull moment!

Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World
As a non-specialist, this book was a delightful introduction to 'The Empire'. It contained sufficient detail to retain my interest throughout, described in very compelling prose.

It gallops through history and across the globe, from the pirates in the Caribbean, to emigration and settlement in America, Australia and New Zealand. The American War Of Independence, African Imperialism and the history of the East India Company are well covered. The book shows you just how simplistic taking a polarised view of whether the Empire was 'good' or 'bad' really is. However, Ferguson's argument that the benefits of industrialisation meant the English might not have been as bad as the other options on the table for some countries was not completely convincing, although it was argued honestly.

The excitement Ferguson feels for his topic bursts out of the book, and I would definately recommend it.