Empire: How Britain Made The Modern World by Niall Ferguson
Just finished this last night. It's a fantastic book on one of the most important subjects in history. Like it or not, the British Empire is the most significant thing to happen in the last three hundred years (sorry France and America but it's true) for so many reasons and this book does a great job of examining what those reasons are and how they changed from the 17th to the 20th centuries. It's also extremely refreshing to read a history of the Empire that doesn't shy away from the crimes of the Empire, but also doesn't condemn it for them. Did the Empire trade slaves? Yes it did, and it fought wars to maintain that trade. Did the Empire abolish the slave trade? Yes it did, and it fought wars to force France, Spain, Portugal, and the Dutch to abolish it, too. Did the Empire hold sovreignty over foreign peoples? Yes it did, and enforced its rule with military force. Did the Empire allow its Dominions and colonies varying degrees of self-governance? Yes it did, and thus sowed the seeds of representative democracy to every corner of the globe. The Empire was both good and bad, harsh and fair, deplorable and laudable. It changed over its long history, in many ways and for many reasons, and by the Second World War, while America was demanding the Empire be broken apart, it stood in stark contrast to the other empires of the day: Japan, Germany, Italy, all nightmares unleashed on mankind, all indefensible, all showing the British Empire for the moderate and largely beneficial system that it was. Other empires, like the Spanish, found civilisations of plenty and looted them for gold, for silver, for slaves. Britain, late the empire building game, found seemingly worthless lands and built them into nations, gave them infrastructure in the form of roads, ports, and railways, gave them institutions in the form of universities, schools, hospitals, and a civil service. Britain left in its wake a string of parliamentary democracies and the notion of free trade (something the Empire enforced for over a hundred years).
If I'm gushing it's because I find the contemporary trend of declaring empires as inherently bad through cherry-picked arguments incredibly frustrating. It is undeniable that the world at large has benfited from the British Empire. Does that mean the Empire has an unblemished record? Of course not, and we should never forget the atrocities commited in its name. But neither should we forget the wonderful things the Empire did. History is not black and white, and it was so good for me to find a book that understands this.