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Niall Ferguson

Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World Paperback – 1 Dec. 2004

by Niall Ferguson (Author)

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Once vast swathes of the globe were coloured imperial red and Britannia ruled not just the waves, but the prairies of America, the plains of Asia, the jungles of Africa and the deserts of Arabia. Just how did a small, rainy island in the North Atlantic achieve all this? And why did the empire on which the sun literally never set finally decline and fall? Niall Ferguson's acclaimed 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.

'The most brilliant British historian of his generation ... Ferguson examines the roles of "pirates, planters, missionaries, mandarins, bankers and bankrupts" in the creation of history's largest empire ... he writes with splendid panache ... and a seemingly effortless, debonair wit' Andrew Roberts

'Dazzling ... wonderfully readable' New York Review of Books

'A remarkably readable précis of the whole British imperial story - triumphs, deceits, decencies, kindnesses, cruelties and all' Jan Morris

'Empire is a pleasure to read and brims with insights and intelligence' Sunday Times

Print length

448 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Penguin
Publication date

1 Dec. 2004
Dimensions

12.9 x 2.6 x 19.8 cm
ISBN-10

9780141007540
ISBN-13

978-0141007540
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Review

Dazzling ... wonderfully readable (New York Review of Books)

A remarkably readable précis of the whole British imperial story - triumphs, deceits, decencies, kindnesses, cruelties and all (Jan Morris)

Thrilling ... an extraordinary story (Daily Mail)

Empire is a pleasure to read and brims with insights and intelligence (Sunday Times)

The most brilliant British historian of his generation ... Ferguson examines the roles of 'pirates, planters, missionaries, mandarins, bankers and bankrupts' in the creation of history's largest empire ... he writes with splendid panache ... and a seemingly effortless, debonair wit (Andrew Roberts)

About the Author

Niall Ferguson is one of Britain's most renowned historians. He is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University, a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and a Visiting Professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing. He has written fourteen books, including The House of Rothschild, Empire, The War of the World, The Ascent of Money, The Great Degeneration and Kissinger, 1923-1968: The Idealist. His many prizes include the Benjamin Franklin Prize for Public Service (2010), the Hayek Prize for Lifetime Achievement (2012) and the Ludwig Erhard Prize for Economic Journalism (2013).

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0141007540
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin; Reprint edition (1 Dec. 2004)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 448 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780141007540
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0141007540
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 12.9 x 2.6 x 19.8 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 239,060 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 3,135 in Political Science (Books)
- 6,472 in World History (Books)
- 7,386 in Great Britain History (Books)

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4.4 1,620 ratings

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Niall Ferguson

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Niall Ferguson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, former Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University and current senior fellow at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University, a visiting professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing, and founder and managing director of advisory firm Greenmantle LLC. The author of 15 books, Ferguson is writing a life of Henry Kissinger, the first volume of which—Kissinger, 1923-1968: The Idealist—was published in 2015 to critical acclaim. The World's Banker: The History of the House of Rothschild won the Wadsworth Prize for Business History. Other titles include Civilization: The West and the Rest, The Great Degeneration: How Institutions Decay and Economies Die and High Financier: The Lives and Time of Siegmund Warburg. Ferguson's six-part PBS television series, "The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World," based on his best-seller, won an International Emmy for best documentary in 2009. Civilization was also made into a documentary series. Ferguson is a recipient of the Benjamin Franklin Award for Public Service as well as other honors. His most recent book is The Square and the Tower: Networks on Power from the Freemasons to Facebook (2018).

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D.D. RUSSELL

A gift

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 6 June 2023

Bought as a gift.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 2 April 2023

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This book is Niall Fergusons finest and it's now 20 years old. It covers the complete history of the British Empire and about imperialism from the 1600s to it's maximum extent of ruling one quarter of the entire land surface of the world by 1920, and it's decline after World War 2. After that Britain declined as a world power and America has stepped into that void. Overall a brilliant book that is easy to read and not too long with clear maps showing Britain's territory back in the day.

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Ricky

Empire - was it all bad?

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 3 February 2020

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What a very interesting story this has been. It is told from the perspective of an historian, who takes us on a fascinating journey of how Britain arrived late on the scene of ‘empire building’. Already, Spain and Portugal had acquired wealth and territory, by plundering it from the South Americas, before British pirates began to steal gold from the Spanish. Modern arguments around lawfulness and morality simply ignore the nature of the world at the time. It was a world of cunning, opportunism, deviousness and power grabbing – a clash of raw power where Britain stole, from those who had taken it…thieves stealing from thieves.
Money led to the building of bigger and better ships, and the establishment of trading routes. The East India Company is probably the best known. Not only was it a company in the modern sense, it also became notorious for its ability to protect itself militarily from rivals. The clash with the financially-superior Dutch, was eventually resolved by a merger, when William of Orange was invited to take over the British throne in 1668. The British thus gained valuable expertise on how to finance its overseas operations, out-manoeuvring its biggest rival, the French.
Britain’s superior navy played a very significant part in the domination of so many parts of the world. There is no doubt that colonisation was often carried out amongst a backdrop of racism, ignorance, greed and disregard for the ordinary people whose countries they took over. There was a lot that could not be defended and some things that were too awful to contemplate. The massacres and mutinies that were often brutally extinguished led to a lot of soul searching. The British were told to be proud of their empire while it was in its ascendancy. After the two World Wars, the empire collapsed within a generation. It has left many British people somewhat ashamed of what Britain did, and the British empire is often regarded as wholly bad.
Yet, in any balanced argument, there were a lot of things that remain as positive. For instance, when the call came to support Britain in the two World Wars, many of its oversees subjects came voluntarily to support the British forces. They too were proud to sacrifice themselves in support of the empire. They were not compelled to do so. Unlike other empires, like the Russian and the Japanese, there was a sense of law and order that was introduced to ameliorate the worst excesses and brutality. The British created such conditions that encouraged private wealth to flow into these countries and acted as investment, such as the railways in India. Unlike the other empires, the British played a pivotal role in the abolition of slavery, not only from its own empire, but also used its naval power to stop other nations from continuing in the practice. Also, English became, and still is, the universal language of business.
Whereas for many, the ‘social justice’ argument would regard the British Empire as all bad or even as evil, the full story presented here, describes what the world was like at the time. It is somewhat naïve to judge the times through the lens of our more educated and conscious modern minds. The empire mindset was born of a different era and it served its purpose until the world view changed and people started to demand independence. What was once regarded as the ‘shiny object’, began to be seen as a shameful episode. The British empire was undoubtedly the most successful amongst the other empires, in a world where empires were seen as profitable and human rights did not figure.

15 people found this helpful

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MJ

The worst form of government - except for many other forms of government...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 6 November 2020

Verified Purchase

Niall Ferguson's "Empire" is aimed at the general reader. (If you want something more academic, try John Darwin or Ronald Hyam.) Ferguson's style is clear and entertaining. Although the book is not aimed at academics it has a useful bibliography and index. The book is a lot more detailed and nuanced than the accompanying TV series, and therefore more interesting.

Ferguson has attracted a lot of abuse for daring to say that the intentions and impact of the imperialists were not always negative for those on the receiving end. If you are not prepared to consider that argument, you won't like this book.

In making his argument Ferguson makes a number of points.
First, the empire extended over a long time.
Secondly , it also covered many different geographic areas (eg: India is a different case from Canada).
Thirdly, the motivations of the individual empire builders varied widely by time, place and individual. Henry Morgan went out to loot Spanish gold and run slave plantations. He is difficult to fit into the same box as high-minded nineteenth century evangelicals dying (literally) to save souls; or utilitarians keen to educate their subjects.
It is therefore pointless to generalise by saying "the British Empire was a bad thing" or "the British Empire was a good thing". In each case when, where and who are you talking about?

Ferguson argues that in judging the British empire builders, whether by the values of their own time or the values of today, we should consider what the most likely alternative was in the time and place in question. Would Indians have fared better under Japanese occupation in 1943? He suggests that the citizens of Nanjing would have been happy to swap. Was Shaka’s mfecane better for the Basotho than British rule? Was Zambia relatively better off under British rule in 1955, when its GDP per person was 1/7 of that of the UK, or in 2003, when its GDP per person was 1/28 of that of the UK? Would Native Americans have been better off under the Spanish or French? Because those were the most realistic alternatives. To adapt Churchill, the British Empire was the worst form of government - except for many of the other forms of government which have been tried from time to time.

If these arguments persuade you to look on the British Empire with an open mind, you may also like Jan Morris's "Pax Britannica" trilogy (slightly dated in style, but full of excellent anecdotes). Yuval Harari's "Sapiens" has very interesting observations on empires' role in uniting ever larger groups of people.

If you are looking for a rhinoceros in the imperial china shop, then George Macdonald Fraser's novels "Flashman at the Charge" and "Flashman in the Great Game" do a brilliant job of bringing the Victorian empire to life. Patrick O'Brian's "Master and Commander" does the same for the Napoleonic wars. (Getting one-up on the French was a major cause for the expansion of the Empire.) "The Four Feathers", filmed in Technicolor, in the Sudan, in 1939, is a fictionalised version of the Anglo-Egyptian invasion of the Sudan following the death of General Gordon. It is interesting to see the Empire depicted by actors who were still living it.

15 people found this helpful

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