A History of Britain III: The Fate of Empire 1776-2000: Fate of Empire; 1776-2001 Vol 3 [Hardcover]

The Fate of Empire brings Simon Schama's stylish and absorbing History of Britain to a stirring close. Of the volumes in the trilogy, The Fate of Empire is the most subjective, as Schama offers his own account of how the British shaped much of the modern world, and in turn were reshaped as a nation and a people by the experience of revolution, empire and war.

Unlike the previous volumes, Schama only pays lip-service to the familiar narrative of British history. The great, the good and the unsung are all there--the Lake poets, Queen Victoria, Benjamin Disraeli, Mary Seacole, Winston Churchill and George Orwell--but Schama uses them as voices through which a different history of Britain can be heard. Ireland, India, the urban poor, suffragettes and striking miners are all restored to the national story. The emphasis on empire (along with India and Ireland the largest subject-entry in the index) is particularly welcome, although the finest hour of empire--the First World War--is dealt with all too briefly.

Along the way Schama reveals himself once more as one of the world's finest cultural historians, with brilliant vignettes on Rousseau in England, the 1851 exhibition, Orwell's complex patriotism and much else, together with original insights on photography, the effect of empire on English vocabulary, and the post-war "colouring" of Britain. For beginners this is an excellent 21st century perspective on modern British history. For connoisseurs it is a refreshing reminder of how little British history the English really know. --Miles Taylor

The third and last part of Simon Schama's highly readable and utterly engaging history of Britain. Like all great narrative historians, Schama is above all else an original prose stylist, fully in command of the evocative language as well as the source materials of historical description. This is also history conceived on a truly grand, epic scale, taking the reader from the Age of Enlightenment and revolutions in political and economic life, right up to Britain's post-imperial twilight at the close of the last century. Another BBC book that will be big at Christmas, not least because the entire 15-part series is to be repeated from September. And as this is the third volume, it is the one that everyone will buy to complete the set.

'While Britain was losing an empire, it was finding itself...' The compelling opening words to this volume, The Fate of the Empire, set the tone and agenda for the final stage of Simon Schama's epic voyage around Britain, her people and her past. Spanning two centuries, crossing the breadth of the empire and covering a vast expanse of topics - from the birth of feminism to the fate of freedom - he explores the forces that shaped British culture and character from 1776 to 2000.

The story opens on the eve of a bloody revolution, but not a British one. The French Revolution's spirit of fiery defiance and Romantic idealism sparked off a round of radical revolts and reforms that gathered momentum over the coming century - from the Irish Rebellion to the Chartist Petition. How could the world's first industrial society come through its growing pains without falling apart in social and political conflict? Would the machine age destroy or strengthen the institutions that held Britain together? And if the British Empire helped to make Britain stable and rich, did it live up to its promise to help the ruled as well as the rulers? Amidst the military and economic shocks and traumas of the 20th century, and through the voices of Churchill, Orwell and H. G. Wells, The Fate of the Empire asks the question that is still with us - is the immense weight of our history a blessing or a curse, a gift or a millstone around the neck of our future?

It is a vast, compelling epic, made more so by the lively storytelling and big, bold characters at the heart of the action. Schama also exposes the grand illusions that cost untold lives when India's viceroys let millions of starving Indians die. Why? What went wrong with the liberal dream? The answers emerge in The Fate of Empire, which reveals the living ideals of Britain's long history, 'a history that tied together social justice with bloody-minded liberty'.

Simon Schama is University Professor of Art History and History at Columbia University in New York. His publications include Patriots and Liberators, which won the 1989 Yorkshire Post Award for Non-Fiction, Dead Certainties, Landscape Eyes, and the History of Britain series. Simon Schama was art critic for the New Yorker from 1995 to 1998, and was awarded a C.B.E. in the 2001 New Year's Honours List. His most recent book, Simon Schama's Power of Art, was published to critical acclaim in 2006.