Some of the best works of history are ones that not only document the past, but also draw lessons for the present. Such is the purpose of Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power, the groundbreaking history of the British Empire by esteemed economic and political historian Niall Ferguson. As the largest land empire, covering over a quarter of the earth’s surface by 1900, as well as one of the few to be dismantled by largely peaceful means, the legacy of the British colonial experience is still important today. Ferguson argues that the British Imperial experiment was one that spread European political cultural institutions, for better or worse, more effectively than any other European empire. It was an empire of prestige that was initially built on trade, but gradually evolved into a centralized political system backed by an ideology of “the white man’s burden” to ‘civilize’ its subject peoples, a project that in many ways succeeded, but ultimately drained the home island of its resources and its ability to keep the empire it had so rapidly and oftentimes unexpectedly acquired.
The peoples of the British Isles, divided as they were in the Late Middle Ages among the Kingdom of England, Scotland, and the various small states of Ireland, were unlikely contenders for world empire. When the New World was discovered by early imperialists Spain and Portugal, Britain had emerged from a terrible feudal civil war, and was thus a relative latecomer to colonization and empire, beginning with the expeditions to North America in the 1580s under Elizabeth I. In these ‘empty’ lands, the British unlike their French, Portuguese and Spanish rivals relied on private corporations to initially establish colonies and control, and often invested the territories they seized with substantial numbers of British nationals. Ferguson emphasizes the importance of the British Navy to the rapid expansion and maintenance of such vast and far-flung imperial holdings. This vast navy not only secured the British Empire abroad, but also British leadership of Europe during the 19th century as the first nation among equals. This century of Pax Britanncia, from 1815-1914, was notable for its lack of European war, and was the great height of the British imperial mission, especially in India, with the Crown having lost its most productive North American Colonies in 1783.
The tensions between European British governors and Indian subjects gradually eased, as the British, unable to control a subcontinent of over 400 million people who possessed a sophisticated culture, instead actively encouraged the development of a Europeanized native middle class of bureaucrats and administrators there, despite the prevailing belief of many British imperialists of their own racial and ethnic superiority. Ferguson addresses such racist attitudes as one of the low-points of the British imperial experiment, but one not resulting in the British desperately clinging to their past imperial glory. Rather, the dismantling of the British imperial system was one of the most peaceful processes of imperial collapse, with many of its former colonies today being successful or relatively stable independent nations.
Niall Ferguson is estimable historian who blends a rich, engaging narrative and serious scholarship with a keen sense of humor and anecdote. His writing is effortlessly comprehensible and entertaining to read from the very first page. His keen analysis of the successes and failures of the British world system suggest Ferguson’s admiration of their empire, but not an explicit agenda. The book provides a fascinating, engaging and incredibly fresh analysis of one of the world’s most successful empires.
Rating: 5+/5