At the close of the twentieth century, the interpretation of the dissolution of the Empire can benefit from evolving perspectives on, for example, the end of the cold war. At this distance in time the Empire's legacy from earlier centuries can be assessed, in ethics and economics as well as politics, with greater discrimination. Though the subject remains ideologically charged, the passions aroused by British imperialism have so lessened that we are now better placed than ever to see the course of the Empire steadily and to see it whole. British domination of indigenous peoples in North America, Asia, and Africa can now be seen more clearly as part of the larger and dynamic interaction of European and non-western societies. This essay will quickly alert readers to the major social movement of the last 400 years, still impacting today, all over the world.įrom the founding of the colonies in North America and the West Indies in the seventeenth century to the reversion of Hong Kong to China at the end of the twentieth, British imperialism was a catalyst for far-reaching change. This is a fascinating blend of risk-taking merchants and aristocratic militarists that developed an Empire, (with minimal design) that evolved into a spread of people (colonies) and culture (laws and language). This is the tale of the world's greatest empire between those of Rome and the United States of America. This book presents a very interesting story. However, I discovered that Wilson's book focused more on England than its empire, so I restricted myself to the principal book that actually does do a better job on the positive Rise than the negative Fall, as readers might have guessed. Although this book does cover the Fall in its final 19 chapters, its emphasis is on the Rise (1600 to 1914: 23 chapters) so, initially, I thought I might supplement the Empire's decline with another fine history: "After the Victorians: the Decline of Britain" by A. This book is the definitive history of the Rise and Fall of the British Empire-by one of England's most admired historians.
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