The Decline and Fall of the British Empire, 1781-1997

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The Decline and Fall of the British Empire, 1781-1997

Editorial Review

A magisterial work of narrative history, hailed in Britain as "the best one-volume account of the British Empire" and "an outstanding book" (The Times Literary Supplement).
After the American Revolution, the British Empire appeared to be doomed. But over the next 150 years it grew to become the greatest and most diverse empire the world has ever seen--ranging from Canada to Australia to China, India, and Egypt--seven times larger than the Roman Empire at its apogee. Britannia ruled the waves and a quarter of the earth.
Yet it was also a fundamentally weak empire, as Piers Brendon shows in this vivid and sweeping chronicle. Run from a tiny island base, the British Empire operated on a shoestring with the help of local elites. It enshrined a belief in freedom that would fatally undermine its authority. Spread too thin, and facing wars, economic crises, and domestic discord, the empire would vanish almost as quickly as it appeared.
Within a generation, the mighty structure collapsed, sometimes amid bloodshed. This rapid demise left unfinished business in Rhodesia, the Falklands, and Hong Kong. It left an array of dependencies and a ghost of an empire overshadowed by a rising America. Above all, it left a contested legacy: at best, a sporting spirit, a legal code, and a near-universal language; at worst, failed states and internecine strife.
Brendon tells this story with brio and brilliance; covering a vast canvas, he fills it with vivid firsthand accounts of life in the colonies and intimate portraits of the sometimes eccentric British officials who administered them. It is all here--from brief lives to telling anecdotes to comic episodes to symbolic moments. Panoramic in scope and riveting in detail, this is narrative history at its finest.

Customer Reviews:

• Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0
• decline and fall of the liberal historian
  We Americans decided against the British Empire over two centuries ago but we have been imperialistic in our own more successful way. The question is not whether empires are good, justifiable, necessary. They will always happen for geopolitical reasons. The real question is what kind of empire are we discussing and what did it accomplish. Our author here presents a radical criticism of the British Empire over two and one half centuries, and while it is amusing often, painful frequently, and always... more info
• Empires are inherently bad...
  The author's premise is that empires and the spreading of western civilization is inherently bad. He chooses to emphasize the parts you would expect a liberal ideologue to, such as massacres, slavery etc. He ignores that expansionism is human nature for the strong. I think his premise, as one other reviewer put it, that empires collapse because they are inherently illegitimate is full of his own political views and not facts. Empires have always existed and always will in one form or another, the strong... more info
• OCCUPATION(=COLONISATION) OUT, FREEDOM-IN ! BRILLIANT HISTORY!!
  Piers Brendon has written a masterpiece on a very important subject, namely:why nations abhor occupation throughout history.To quote Edward Gibbon who said that "there is nothing more adverse to nature and reason than to hold in obedience remote countries and foreign nations, in oppposition to their inclination and interest"-words which also sum up Brendon's argumentations about the British Empire's failure regarding its attempt to subjugate a quarter of the world.
  The thesis of the author is... more info
• British Empire Casts a Long Shadow
  Piers Brendon was not being whimsical when he titled this book after Edward Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Unlike Americans, who never considered themselves imperialists, the British took their imperial duties seriously. The sons and daughters of empire saw themselves as present-day Romans. They were steeped in the classics, they learned the languages of their subject peoples, and they prepared to spend many years abroad in the service of the Crown. Brendon makes the case (as did Niall... more info

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