I wrote a paper on my initial reaction to the book, and after finishing it, I think my intuition was right. Here it is (I think I'm pretty harsh in this review--I don't think the book is "one-star bad" though):"A brief Google search of Niall Ferguson provides an ocean of information on him and his political leanings. Without a doubt, the most controversial is his defense of British Imperialism. After reading the introduction and first chapter of his book, “Empire,” it becomes clear why he is a t...

I so wanted to launch into an outraged invective against the temerity of the author - but find myself in reluctant agreement with most of the arguments. Let me read and research the period even more before any attempt at a conclusion.Related review, for the interested: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Earlier this year, I read (and reviewed on this site) a nasty piece of work called The Decline and Fall of the British Empire by Piers Brendon. Like the present volume, it was a history of the British empire. Unlike the present volume, it was a determined hatchet job, in which all the crimes, follies and failures of British imperialism were noted at great length, while its achievements were ignored or decried. Jonathan Rashid, whose review of Empire appears just below mine on this page, would pr...

An interesting outcome at the end of this book which goes someway to say that working in America has turned him into a bit of a right-wing nut job, he was just a right - wing historian when he lived in the UK. His argument that the British Empire was not all bad, as we left civilising things such as democracy (Burma, Singapore, Hong Kong), cricket and a general force for good. While he is right about the cricket he is nuts if he thinks empire was a force for good, it has made Britain a few enemi...

The first two or three chapters of "Empire" are rather concise and informative, thoughtfully explaining the nuts-and-bolts of how the British Empire came to be.Unfortunately, much of the book subsequently devolves into coy and seemingly unintentional comparisons between Britain's empire in practice with, say those of the United States, Russia, Germany, France, and others. Ferguson very dutifully and diligently condemns those excesses of the British Empire, which he tactfully describes as "at its...

I listened to an audio version of this (superbly read by Sean Barrett) with great fascination. For one thing, I learned about a number of aspects of the British Empire that I had not known before - as an American, learning about this aspect of history was not required reading beyond knowing about the American Revolution. Secondly, I know that Ferguson is a well-known conservative intellectual - so I am happily surprised to see that this is a clear-eyed, well-balanced endeavor, one that does not

Every once in awhile I try and give the political right a fair hearing by reading something of a conservative writer. This time it was Ferguson's Empire. What can I say? How can you be impartial about such a shoddy, smug polemic? Such writing certainly brings out my political biases. Which might ultimately be the desired end of such a book. It will irritate anyone who is ambivalent about the imperialist narratives that from time to time are revisited and promoted. I suppose I was naive to expect...

This is a highly compressed history of 300 or so years of British imperialism. It isn't pretty, much of it. The Mutiny, 1857, the Boer War, 1900, Amritsar Massacre, 1919, are gone into with some thoroughness. What I missed was Ferguson's facility with statistics. His manipulation of them made The Pity of War a fascinating read. Empire is by an large straight narrative with little statistical support until we arrive in the 20th century, at which point the author reverts to form. The narrative was...

Wow. When Ferguson started this book by acknowledging his positionality as a child who was brought up to love the Empire, and only later understood the horrors that came with it, I wrongly assumed that he might have been able to break out of that pro-Empire point of view. But I was completely wrong. The apologist tone of this book just got worse and worse, with Ferguson basically arguing that although the Empire was bad, it wasn't THAT bad, which in my opinion is no argument at all. This book is...

This is an utterly engrossing and entertaining history of the British Empire. Ferguson is a terrific storyteller and his narrative has scarcely a dull sentence. He emphasizes the empire's rise much more than its fall, which is confined to the final chapter. The six chapters cover commodity markets, labour markets, culture, government, capital markets, and warfare, "or, in rather more human terms, the role of" pirates, planters, missionaries, mandarins, bankers, and bankrupts.The book is punctuat...

For as long as I can remember I have always been fascinated by the British Empire; this enormous edifice which towered over the world and 'bestrode' enormous amounts of the world's land-mass. Its fascinhation stems in part, I think, because it is an aspect of the world's history which stirs up so many conflicting emotions. Ones which sometimes seem diammetrically opposed to each other; shame because of the abuse and oppression which is undoubtedly present in some corners or even whole rooms of t...

This was an absolutely wonderful read! Niall Ferguson, author of this book's sequel, "Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire," gives his readers a crash-course in British imperial history starting with the English privateering raids on the Spanish empire and ending with the Suez Canal Crisis of 1956. Ferguson's main point is that, all things considered, the British Empire was a good thing for the world. And, it must be said, he makes a very strong case for this using economic, politi...

I was initially quite impressed by this book but I suggest you read a standard narrative of empire and return to this afterwards as a useful and often wise interpretation of that history. I can strongly recommend the old but still serviceable trilogy by James/Jan Morris.Where Ferguson scores is in his thematic approach which is revealed in the Acknowledgements as having been driven by a link to a Channel Four TV series. This explains some of the book's oddities where the narrative seems to be dr...

If you are reasonably woke and you manage to read the last chapter, you cannot possibly give this book more than one star. On the other hand, even if you are fully woke, you can easily give this book 4 stars as long as you are able to ignore Niall Ferguson's pro-imperial coda. The reason is straightforward; this is actually a pretty decent (and except for the end, quite balanced) history of the British empire. It is not a very long book, so it cannot cover all episodes, but most of the highlight...

My "four stars" here reflects Ferguson's book being an entertaining review of the Empire for the general reader and not having any obvious signs of bias, although given this is the first book I have read about the British Empire I don't have much else to judge it against and "being entertaining" is a pretty shallow criteria to assess a history on a subject as potentially controversial as the British Empire.The book has a conclusion section which sums up Ferguson's view on the Empire and with his...

Niall Ferguson, author of other non-fiction hits as "Pity of War", "The Cash Nexus" and 2006's "War of the World" offers a modern analysis of one of the most influential empires in history. An Englishman, Ferguson tackles the history of the British Empire in this layman's volume of 370 pages, rich with illustrations, maps, and photos stretching from empire's reluctant beginnings in the 17th century to the final collapse following WWII. Niall has two great qualities for a history writer that ende...

I enjoyed this. Well written but am not that sure it had that much to say that was new. The British Empire being a good thing is not that new an idea is it? The Penguin edition is very cheap and worth the few dollars alone.

"Empire" has an excellent conclusion and some interesting analysis, but Niall Ferguson taints what could have been a brilliant work with strange forays into homophobia, rhetorical arguments that undermine his authority and an apologist attitude towards British rule that occasionally (and thankfully only occasionally) enters the realm of the absurd. This is an interesting book, to be sure, but nowhere near Ferguson's best. Still, if one plans to read "Colossus", one must read "Empire" first. The

Brititush imperialism and colonialismامپراطوری بریتانیاThe British Empire began at a time when empires from Spain and Portugal were already well underway. It started with the help of pirates like Henry Morgan who helped establish the territory of Jamaica. Spurred on by a high demand for imported goods, the East India Company established more bases around the world that were gradually incorporated into the Empire. Competition with France led to the Seven Years’ War which helped solidify key terri...

Having recently done an on-line course about the Jolly ol’ Empire felt it was a good time to pick this up & read again. Much of the course content was recognisable, the book giving more depth and detail & have to say felt more rewarded after this second read. Narrative flowed & was plenny thought provoking in its delivery. Recommended for all history buffs.