Empire

The difficulty with the achievements of empire is that they are much more likely to be taken for granted than the sins of empire.

Empire brilliantly unfolds the imperial story in all its splendours and its miseries, showing how a gang of buccaneers and gold-diggers planted the seed of the biggest empire in all history – and set the world on the road to modernity.  

Writer, broadcaster and historian Niall Ferguson draws on a wealth of sources to reveal the British Empire’s astonishing story, from modest beginnings through Victorian heyday to twentieth century swansong. Wresting power from its rivals by a combination of intimidation and imitation, this was the first age of globalisation – but globalisation with gunboats.

The Empire was dismantled not because it had oppressed subject peoples for centuries, but because it took up arms for just a few years against far more oppressive empires. It did the right thing, regardless of the cost.

Revealing how immigration (both voluntary and forced) turned the American and Australian continents white, how missionaries sought to ‘enlighten’ the dark continents of Africa and Asia, and how the East India Company edged into a sub-continent for trade but ended up creating a colony, Empire examines the preconceptions that surround the British Empire and balances the negative with concepts of modernity and progression. Above all, Empire explains how British imperialism rose, and why it fell.

A new preface specifically written for our edition by the author addresses the controversy unleashed by the book’s publication. The incisive text is complemented by newly researched contemporary images, including journal entries, maps, photographs and cartoons.