Niall Ferguson – Empire (2003)
History – 380 pages – my copy (2007; Penguin paperback) purchased for £2.99 from the Bookcase in Chiswick, London, July 2009
- 3 nods out of 5 -
Niall Ferguson has made a name for himself as one of Britain’s eminent working historians. Primarily publishing economic histories – concentrating on the Rothschild family – he has also turned his pen to America and, more recently, world wars. What then holds the value in yet another book upon the British Empire, its birth and its eventual eclipse?
History – 380 pages – my copy (2007; Penguin paperback) purchased for £2.99 from the Bookcase in Chiswick, London, July 2009
- 3 nods out of 5 -
Niall Ferguson has made a name for himself as one of Britain’s eminent working historians. Primarily publishing economic histories – concentrating on the Rothschild family – he has also turned his pen to America and, more recently, world wars. What then holds the value in yet another book upon the British Empire, its birth and its eventual eclipse?
The shelves are filled with so many tales upon this small island’s large holdings, from the glowing portraits to the critical studies and lamblasts from an unforgiving, modern generation. Ferguson, though, has no wish to stick the sword deeper into the corpse. Instead, he argues that his family was shaped by empire, his study – though covering its excesses and abuses – being ultimately positive in argument and tone.
The reader gets the familiar story: the explorer beginnings in Tudor times, confidence under the Stuarts, the great expansion in Victorian times, resulting in the disasterous wars in the twentieth century and the end of the journey, ‘empire for sale’. Amongst this, Ferguson performs admirably well; a writer of considerable skill he highlights various interesting tidbits and facts; such as the Maroons of Jamaica and the adventurers from Clive of India to Rhodes of Africa.
Though not a full-blooded apologist, Ferguson concludes with examining Britain's sacrificies in the Second World War, the period that Churchill coined the country's "finest hour". Ferguson suggests:
‘Yet what made it so fine, so authentically noble, was that the Empire’s victory could only ever have been Pyrrhic. In the end, the British sacrificed her Empire to stop the Germans, Japanese and Italians from keeping theirs. Did not that sacrifice alone expunge all the Empire’s other sins?’
An interesting question for the critics of empire, the many of who have recently been winning the debate on the validity and morality of Britain’s colonial adventures and abuses. However, the issue is much too wide to be simply packaged into such a question. Empire meant many things to many differing people from all walks of life; yes, some benefited, yet many did not - including the average-Joe-Briton himself.
Ultimately, it is the same tired story, told once again. Britain, it would seem, is forever fascinated with its more glorious past. Yes, we once ruled the waves. Now the empire rules the history shelves of our bookstores.
