| Title | : | Heaven's Command: An Imperial Progress |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0571194664 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780571194667 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 560 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1973 |
Heaven's Command: An Imperial Progress Reviews
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We don’t want to fight, but by jingo if we do,
We’ve got the ships, we’ve got the men, we’ve got the money too!
INNOCENTS ABROAD!
This is history told through a patchwork of breezy anecdotes — that might not even fit together well enough, but still achieves the objective remarkably well. The narrative flits in and out across the world, now Australia, now India, now Afghanistan, now Congo, and so on. The idea was probably to allow the reader to visualize through these series of picturizations the full magnificence that was the Empire.
More than the anecdotal nature, the selection of anecdotes themselves is curious. They are largely personal anecdotes, dealing with individuals. The historical narrative is stitched together from these short, quick personal sketches.
The Middle Path
While enormously interesting, this selection also betrays the by-default-note of imperialistic apology writ large over such an approach. It is hard to talk of individuals without touching the picture up with romanticism, especially when only eulogizing records exist, the crushed ones having not kept individual/personal records, especially when Morris searches out the medium-level players, not the Viceroys, Governor-Generals, Kings and Ministers — the on-the-ground players — who exist now only in British-written annals or diaries/letters and loom larger than life, as they had to.
This is a new method to the rhetoric of imperial defense, at least to this reviewer — the Imperial Progress across the world is shown from a middle view — the view of the decent men and women who participated in the everyday pushing along of the imperial cart.
But why focus on them?
Why leave out the two ends of the spectrum - the Imperial Station Masters and the common men among the imperial subjects?
Because this middle view is surprisingly conducive to showing a decent and forgivable view of the Imperial ‘Progress’ — a on-high view would expose the despotism, racism and blatant menace that accompanied the progress; while the bottom view would expose that the word ‘progress’ is way beyond an excusable misnaming of the imperial process.
I still do not give the book less than a middling star rating since the language is good, the prose is breezy, and it is a decent reading experience. It is extremely light reading and is a good parlor-table book, enjoyable and non-thought provoking.
It is hard to capture that spirit when tackling a momentous period. The author attempted and captured that brilliantly. She also manages to make me feel defensive and a complete prig for criticizing such a breezy and good-natured account.
That is the strength of the book and the danger. The author does starts with a frank admission of bias, adding to the breezy tally-ho approach, forcing any offended readers to forgive her and just enjoy the journey. I am sorry to report that it can easily work. I was caught off-guard many times, especially when it was the other countries that were the subject of discussion. Only when the focus shifted back to India was I able to detect the prejudices of the breezy account.
In fact, how Morris would treat the
1857 Revolt (not mutiny!) was something I looked forward to — I knew that would act as a touchstone to how I would judge the book’s biases. True to expectations, she shows the ‘mutiny’ as a bumbling no-show and the britishers as magnanimously outraged avengers. It is treated as a complete farce. That decided it for me and from then on my reading was much more alert to undertones.
I noticed how trivial details are lovingly dwelt on, to convey the full sense of a nostalgic lost world; while tragic events such as the
burning of the Summer Palace in Beijing (an event that left such a psychological scar on Chinese history) are passed by with a single breezy sentence: ‘a well-placed blow to Tartar pride.'
What is most noticeable, however, is that the only subject people (empires enemies) who are given a semblance of humanity are the
Boers and the Australian settlers — both European in origins, of course. The Irish is also given a more personalized picturization but there is a thread of hostility and reductionism detectable there too.
Sample a selection:
... when in 1897 good old Queen Victoria celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of her accession to the throne, the nation made it gaudily and joyously a celebration of Empire. Never had the people been more united in pride, and more champagne was imported that year than ever before in British history. What a century it had been for them all! How far the kingdom had come since that distant day when Emily Eden, hearing upon the Ganges bank of the young Queen’s accession, had thought it so charming an invention! What a marvellous drama it had offered the people, now tragic, now exuberant, now uplifting, always rich in colour, and pathos, and laughter, and the glow of patriotism! In 1897 Britain stood alone among the Powers, and to most Britons this isolated splendour was specifically the product of Empire. Empire was the fount of pride. Empire was the panacea. Empire was God’s gift to the British race, and dominion was their destiny.
Or, consider the excuses set forth in this little passage:
Not many people doubted the rightness of Empire. The British knew that theirs was not a wicked nation, as nations went, and if they were insensitive to the hypocrisies, deceits and brutalities of Empire, they believed genuinely in its civilizing mission. They had no doubt that British rule was best, especially for heathens or primitives, and they had faith in their own good intentions. In this heyday of their power they were behaving below their own best standards, but they remained as a whole a good-natured people.
Their chauvinism was not generally cruel. Their racialism was more ignorant than malicious. Their militarism was skin-deep. Their passion for imperial grandeur was to prove transient and superficial, and was more love of show than love of power. They had grown up in an era of unrivalled national success, and they were displaying the all too human conceit of achievement.
Sure. I buy that. Yeah.
It also has to be said that occasionally she does try to knowingly mock the empire to show detachment but inevitably slips back into a gloating romanticizing of the empire. The account on Irish history also helped me with my reading of Joyce - another positive for the book. Also, THERE IS AN INDEX!
A Non-Intellectual Defense
So in effect, it is a non-intellectual defense of Empire, deftly done by by providing personal accounts, by telling the reader — “but look, see how swell these guys were?” It is emotional manipulation. And quite effective — It is hard to feel anger towards most of the characters on which the book rides. I feel that is quite a psychologically powerful impression that the book can leave. Even more so for being true, most of these middle-level guys in probability really were swell guys.
Niall Ferguson (Empire: How Britain Made The Modern World) should endeavor to learn from Jan Morris.
[
About the cartoon - As Japan apologizes to Korea, a group of people from other colonized nations wonders when their colonizers will issue a similar apology. ]
Even though cringe-inducingly triumphalistic throughout, this is good historical time-pass. It is recommended in that spirit. As long as the readers stay alert against taking an ideological impression away from the reading of the Empire as a good natured, well-intentioned beast that never knew that it was doing anything wrong and got up and left as soon as it realized.
The problem with all such defenses of Empire is that they are inevitably operating on the premise of a false dichotomy — that of being able to separate (or even prove the existence of) positive and negative sides to colonialism. Which is just the wrong way to look at subjugation and exploitation — it does NOT matter if positives were there. Mistakes were made, deal with it. Denialism will get us nowhere. Imperialism was not genial bumbling. Sorry.
“Every empire, however, tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate.”
~ Edward W. Said -
Heaven's Command is 'History of the British Empire as Saucy Anecdote' and I loved it. I'm in the middle of a major downsizing in my house and it made the housework much more enjoyable to be listening along to this audiobook, which reads like an adventure story. There is a bit of theorizing in the opening pages about how Britain's will to rule the world began in earnest with abolitionist William Wilberforce, whose work to abolish the slave trade left all of Britain with a smug moral imperative, or excuse rather, to bring civilization and enlightenment to all people. It's an interesting idea, and it made me think about how the U.S. was left with a similar moral imperative, after playing the pivotal role in defeating evil in WWII, and after which it, too, appointed itself the world's civilizing force--but that's about it for any introspection in this book.
The rest was one rousing tale after another. The Southern Africa section zips along as dramatically as the 1964 movie 'Zulu' starring Michael Caine. The messy history of India and Empire begins with a long and almost romantic introduction to the Thuggee and their assassination methods. It's breezy, and maybe even a little bit of a guilty pleasure, but on the other hand I do know a lot more about the Voortrekkers than I did before, and about many other things, too, and it was delightful to find another Barbara-Tucker sort of storyteller that could make history come alive for me.
I especially recommend it for people who enjoyed J.G. Farrell's
The Siege of Krishnapur--although Morris is writing history, and Farrell's book is fiction, both books have the same brash attitude. -
This was fantastic! Never dull, and the author made connections between historical personalities, movements, etc. that I hadn't seen before. I can hardly wait to get the next in the series!
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Ripping Yarns
This is a somewhat difficult book to assess. It is a book started shortly after the collapse of the British Empire (here defined as the Suez Crisis of 1956) written with hindsight from the narrow perspective of an idealistic and relatively liberal English subject. While ambivalent in many ways, the essential decency of the British character is never questioned and broad stereotypes of national character and civilization are treated freely. The non-British subjects of the empire, if they are mentioned at all, are treated only insomuch as they interact with imperial officers, the sole major exceptions being those who (like the Afrikaners) are white. It is in short a book that views white British as the unspoken default and all others as outsiders, however sympathetic they may be if you meet them. She’s not pro-slavery, for example, and points out hypocrisies in the slave-owning classes, but at the same time she describes abolition as having devastating consequences. How can someone say that and not be pro-slavery? Because the goings on of black former slaves (while tragic) are simply outside her purview.
These shortcomings (and they are shortcomings) are more forgivable when you consider what the book is trying to be. It is quite explicit about this from the beginning: this is to be an attempt to capture the feel of the empire, the view it held of itself, by a former imperial subject who lived through its final years and witnessed its ultimate collapse. Given that this is the objective of the book it seems somewhat unfair (even though it is frustrating) to blame it for what it isn’t. The expanded memoirs of a white Englishwoman are naturally going to fail to capture the perspectives of a native subject. It lacks the perspective of time to let the dust settle, but it conveys the immediacy of it and captures some sense of the thrill and wonder that an imperialist would have felt. If you want to understand the imperial mentality this is the place to start. And she does a marvelous and nonjudgmental (I almost said unsentimental, but it’s the opposite of that) job of bringing the mentality to life.
The book sets out to capture what the empire felt like to those in charge and how they viewed the world that they controlled and justified it to themselves. On such a level it succeeds brilliantly, with a few caveats. Firstly of course, is the fact that revealing the ideals without peeking beneath to the behavior is bound to leave a very misleading impression both of empire and its servants. Secondly, the ideals played up here are strictly those of people with liberal sentiments who felt some need to justify what were ultimately pretty brazen acts of violence. People like this did exist, but they pass over the majority of imperialists who simply felt little need for justification beyond might makes right. In fairness, such people will naturally have little to contribute intellectually to the notion of empire (even though the imperial idealists spent most of their time seeking justification for what those people did rather than directing them) but this also ignores the darker ideals at play. She certainly mentions racism and the ideals of white supremacy that came to (as she sees it) tarnish the benefits of empire, but while this is mentioned it is treated in such a way as to make them seem foibles rather than common attitudes. There are problems with looking at things only through the imperial lens.
The sheer ambivalence of the book is one of its more interesting aspects. While not exactly an anti-imperialist, she recognizes the empire’s flaws and sees its downfall as an inevitable result of incompatible goals. The entire trilogy must be read to fully understand this view since she judges each era differently. As she sees it the ideals of the imperialists were essentially decent: to “civilize” the natives and bring them the benefits of modern knowledge. Opportunists existed of course, and even idealists often used their ideals to justify blatant opportunism, but the goal of bringing civilization to savages always lay there in the background. The early empire (which developed mainly by accident) was thus mostly good (this is part one, Sentiment of Empire: 1837-1850). Over time though, as the British started to drink their own Kool-Aid, the conviction that they had been given a divine mission to civilize the world started to corrupt their sense of mission (The Growing Conviction, 1850-1870). As they started to believe in their own hype they became more and more arrogant and detached from reality, turning into a more oppressive force than one acting for good (Imperial Obsession, 1870-1897). Subsequent volumes will deal with its collapse and fall. This is an oversimplification of course. The early period had plenty of opportunism and was frequently indifferent rather than simply well-intentioned. The positive imperial ideals are associated more with the period when things start to get more brazen.
This is not a scholarly book and makes no pretensions about that. Its goal is not analysis but feelings. Personalities are the main focus, followed by places and then events. Generalities and overarching frameworks is not this book’s strong suite. Each chapter is a vignette or series of vignettes about one corner of the empire organized according to date. That may sound hopelessly formulaic, but the basic approach is that of a storyteller. Rather than analyze each region the book tells a ripping good yarn about it and this, combined with a travel guide’s eye for local flavor, forms the core of the story. A grand tour around the empire led by someone who visited it firsthand. Instead of an overarching framework for explaining the empire, this book is about feelings and attitudes. How did the explorers see it? How did the bureaucrats and administrators? How about the colonists? Each vignette is chosen to be representative of one or another of these themes.
One good thing to come out of this is that Morris has an amazing eye for anecdotes and an outstanding command of revealing quotes. Cecil Rhodes’ description of his ambitions for empire as “philanthropy plus 5%” was my favorite. Her own voice is good humored and forgiving, with a tolerant fondness for folly and good intentions. She is eminently quotable. “Long before imperialism became a national cause, a popular enthusiasm or even an electoral issue, it occurred to some Britons that they might be a kind of master race”. Many of these quotes fall into the racial (or perhaps ethnic) essentialist ideas common during her era; the belief that there is an inherent national character that can be observed and described. Example: “Unlike the English and the Scots, the Irish had never been wanderers. They had no instinct for the exotic: perhaps they were exotic enough in themselves. They loved their country with a mystic attachment, and the free English-speaking communities scattered across the world, familiar though they were with Cockney or Glaswegian, seldom heard the brogue.” “Mystic” and “exotic”… somehow Englishmen are never described that way, no matter their weirder inclinations. “Eccentric” they’d be. Or “unusual”. It’s not cruel exactly, but it is dismissive and smug. The voice, to be honest, of empire. On some level I’m truly happy to see it so unadulterated, not hiding behind euphemisms or false pretenses. On the other hand… there’s a reason we tend to obscure such things now.
That was Heaven’s Command: equal parts brilliant and frustrating. There were times when I couldn’t put it down and others when I just wanted it to be over. The vignettes and stories from the empire were sometimes fun, but I did often find myself yearning for more analysis and fewer imperial eccentrics. Focusing on the British experience of their empire is fine, but the near total absence of any colonial voices is shocking (though perhaps it shouldn’t be). I’m a bit tired of race being used as the be all end all of every subject, but it’s impossible to ignore that (particularly by the Victorian Era) it formed the chief factor of and justification for imperialism in England. She can hardly be accused of ignoring this, but at the same time it is presented as an innocent and ignorant prejudice, free of the malice and cruelty that she sees as inherently, well, non-British. It’s what I’d expect from a Britain still enjoying the warm afterglow of imperial dreams. Our more cynical (I would say realistic) age might look on this and struggle to turn war crimes and murder into the careless excesses of cheerful good humor. She slaps the wrist gently where we might go for the throat. But that too is the voice of empire. -
The scope of this book is enormous. If you have an interest in the causes of the horrors of the 20th century then this book will answer many questions for you. It sets the 19th century Imperial scene perfectly.
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Heaven's Command: An Imperial Progress is the first volume of Jan Morris' trilogy on the British Empire. Oddly, to me at least, he begins his recounting of the Empire in 1837 thus ignoring the fact that England began collecting other countries through either invasion and conquest or chartered trade companies from the 12th century on. In this first volume, the New World is pretty much left out of it except for Canada, Bermuda and Jamaica and China is only mentioned twice, by name only: Hong Kong and the burning of the Summer Palace in quoting a General who thought it was a good insult. Actually, I guess you have to limit the story somehow and encompassing this first volume within Queen Victoria's reign is a good way to do it.
Within this volume are the outstanding names of British Imperialism: Benjamin Disraeli, William Gladstone, Charles "Chinese" Gordon, Henry Stanley and Dr. Livingston, Cecil Rhodes, Richard Burton, Charles Stewart Parnell, and even H.Rider Haggard. The list is unending. So are the famous events, the failures as well as the victories. Morris makes the argument that the British Empire in this period came into being and even expanded because of an evangelistic zeal that had developed among the populace by the time of Victoria's coronation. They were led by a desire to spread God's word among the less developed peoples of the world and bring the benefits of civilization. According to Morris, "...the British as a nation were not conscious expansionists. Power for power's sake had not yet seized the public imagination." Maybe so, but they didn't give up any piece of it and repeatedly fought to keep their "reluctant" empire. By the end of Victoria's reign, they had come full circle and were again gaining colonies by invasion and conquest and were granting charters to trade companies to operate as had the East India Company and the Hudson Bay Company - as pseudo-private countries.
This first volume is excellent history and I expect no less from the next two. Some of the argument offered to justify the acquiring of the empire and the actions against the local inhabitants was weak. Still, I don't expect to judge the past by views held in the present and many of the contemporary citizens had strong views against the idea of Empire building as well. Especially enjoyable was the poetry scattered throughout by the likes of Tennyson, Kipling, Milton, and a wide variety of English poets. -
The first book in Morris wonderful trilogy on the British Empire. I read the books out of order, reading the first book last.
Morris tells the Empire's history through a series of anecdotes, masterfully capturing the feeling of empire while at the same time introducing the reader to some of the most important historical events taking place under British rule. Unlike the later books where Morris indulges her fascination with the quirkier aspects of the empire, here the focus is placed more strictly on places and event one would expect to be mentioned in a history on the subject.
If I have any compliant it would be the in my opinion excessive focus on architecture. I have little interest in the subject and find the written word an ill fitting medium for its depiction. -
Jan Morris is fast becoming one of my favorite authors. Her prose is so charming that I've found myself frequently texting short passages of this book to one friend or another, depending on subject matter.
Morris looks at the attitude of empire, and it's development across Queen Victoria's reign from ascension of the throne to Diamond Jubilee, and it's a fascinating perspective. The events, anecdotes, and personalities she introduces the reader to all tend towards tying together an overall sense of the evolving attitude to empire held by the British, the politicians, the ruling class, and people.
If I have one quibble it's that, while frequently acknowledging the hypocrisy, cruelty, and moral blindspots of empire, she also has areas where she is overly charmed by some of the worst offenders. She does acknowledge this though, which takes away some of the sting.
Morris also powerfully conveys the corrupting influence of power, and in particular, how fear of the loss of power can lead people to commit horribly dehumanizing actions. -
A survey book; glimpsing into different aspects of Britain’s Imperial acquisitions and retentions during the Victorian era, It’s an overview book to get you Interested in a topic you might want to dive down deeper on.
I did this as an audio book and the narrator was quite good, doing accents when reading quotes... French Canadian, Australian, White/black South African, Irish, etc... was a well done job that helped immersion. -
Upon attempting to peruse this literary oeuvre, I found the author to be boorishly condescending to all who were not of the English one thousand.
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Of its time but full of ripping stories exquisitely told, and rarely praises the imperial progress without questioning its overarching morality. Comes to the fascinating conclusion that public opinion predominantly shifted the empire from evangelical busybodies to cruel merchants. Look forward to the next one.
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First, I must mention that I rarely listen to audiobooks as I find my attention wanders too easily. However, I had no such problem with this book, as the content was fascinating and well structured and the narration was excellent.
This is the first volume of a trilogy about the British Empire, and deals with events at a high level from Victoria's accession in 1837 to her diamond jubilee in 1897. It is not a strictly chronological history, but more a collection of historical anecdotes that give an impression of the ideas and themes of Empire. The reader is taken from Canada to Australia to India and all the corners of the globe, and meets a wide range of characters - some well known such as Parnell, Gordon, Livingstone and Rhodes, along with soldiers, administrators and explorers whose names are now forgotten.
This is a very engaging account, supported by witty and perceptive footnotes packed with interesting detail. The book was originally published in 1968, and views of the ethics and legacy of Empire have evolved considerably since then. Therefore many readers may want to challenge some of the interpretations of motivations and outcomes that are put forward here, and I would suggest that this is valid. Nevertheless, it is still a readable, well-researched and knowledgeable account of a significant historical phenomenon and I will be reading the other volumes in the trilogy. -
This is the witty story of the Victorian Empire from Victoria’s accession to the throne in 1837 to her Diamond Jubilee in 1897. In character studies and in descriptive passages, James Morris (later Jan Morris) traces the course of Empire. The scope is vast and many details are provided. One example is Gladstone’s role as High Commissioner of Cyprus. Another is Richard Burton’s search for the source of the Nile. There is Edward John Eyre, the first White Man to explore the Australian Blight. Another important event was the Sepoy Mutiny in India in 1857-1859. The incredible detail the author provides can only have been provided by complete mastery of the primary sources. There is plenty of color and no juicy detail is left out.
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Simply incredible. Who knew history could be this interesting? Who knew that descriptions of battles could still communicate military detail without endless repetition? Who knew dates and names could be rattled off regularly without making me yawn?
I was skeptical when it was gifted to me, assuming it was a laborious academic tome. Whilst it's by no means short on fact and detail, it's far more hybrid in nature - just as compellingly entertaining and engaging as it is interesting and informative.
The writing is just beautiful; elegant, paced and sumptuous without being over-bearing. Centrally, it's evocative - and that's really one of the most clever things about the book. It at once completely evokes the spirit of the Empire; the excitement and energy of a country that day-by-day was making leaps of discovery and progress. But at the same time it adopts a tone that is understatedly contemptuous of the motivations and methods that were employed.
Its condemnation of the concept of Empire is inherent but not aggressive, often delivered with a gentle irony; letting many of the atrocities speak for themselves, and giving a healthy sense of fulness to the peoples that were inevitably steam rollered. It gives good (though uncontested - though like I said, it's not an academic work per se) explanation of how many of the ideas of empire came to be; the charisma of key stakeholders and an attitude of benevolence and calling that only latterly devolved into greed and power.
I am, ultimately, shocked that history is this interesting, and shocked that it can be written as such, to such a degree.
I'm almost tempted to dock a point though - simply because of the frustration - and envy - this book caused. To hold such expertise and knowledge and write so well as Jan (as well as climbing Everest and being involved in pioneering gender surgery), when I won't be able to remember the name of a single historical figure or the date of a battle even one week from now is very, very humbling. -
This is a hard book for me to review. On one hand I learnt a lot about the history of British colonialism (and all of its horrors). I don’t think anyone could read the section about the genocide of the Tasmanian aboriginal people and not be affected. On the other hand some of the language and description of (non-white) people is dated and almost racist. It is also a history of men. I think if you were to measure the percentage of women’s stories and experiences compared to men in this book you’d be lucky to get to 1%. Overall I learnt a lot about the history and gained a much wider view of how this focus on empire came to be. Much of this horrified me and demonstrated clearly how horrific this colonialist mentality was and how these people really thought the (non-white) world was theirs for the taking.
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I started this, the first of a three volume series about British Imperialism, after having read a fantastic interview with its amazing author, Ms Morris. But I gave up after about 50 pages because there was so much about the British Imperial history I didn't know. But after a month or so I started again – not entirely sure why. And almost instantly I was captured and now have an appetite for the next two in the trilogy. I expect I'll like no. 2 even more than I liked this one.
The history of British Imperialism isn't very pretty although motives at some points in time and for some of the involved were honorable. Jan Morris tries to be fair and it is my impression that she succeeds.
So, if you start this, have patience, it picks up pace. -
A beautifully written and detailed appraisal of the Victorian era, culminating with Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee (the framing device for the subsequent book). While not a good introductory text to understanding the British Empire, this book is full of wonderful anecdotes, stories, facts and information about one of the world's most vibrant empires.
The book exposes the good, the bad, and the ugly of empire, painting a picture of a constantly changing people and polity, ruled by greed and principles - often at the same time.
It tells this tale through the many voices and people of empire, bringing them to life and telling the tales of the many people and locations that made up this colossus, and helped it change the world. -
An excellent book and the first in a trilogy looking at the rise and fall of the British Empire. Morris's lengthy read is essentially a description of a series of pitched battles, some won and some lost, but that's more than fitting when the Empire itself was steeped in so much blood. More importantly, her style is lively and accessible, taking a hugely complx and intricate amount of history and distilling it down into the important bits. Sure, more detail could have been taken over economics, trade and commerce, but then this book would be two or three times the length, and it seems to me just perfect as it is.
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I found the book absolutely phenomenal. The scope is majestic, the prose Steinbeckian, the characters romantic and the narrative steeped with sympathy and insight. Fittingly British, its humour never lets the story get dull, despite the vast assemblage of characters, events and ideas that it covers. The story of Victoria's empire, the greatest show-business in history, has indeed found its fitting chronicle in these pages.
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Although the author is an engaging writer, it can't make up for the fact that the book lacks sources and that the author seems to be quite a racist:
"They [the freed slaves of Sierra Leone] became a particularly gay and hospitable people. Half-forgotten ancestral rhythms enlivened the cadences of metrical psalms, and the sons of sober bureaucrats discovered in themselves inherited aptitudes for dance and buffoonery" (48). -
I love her lyricism and flair for the narrative, and when I read part #3 I was able to forgive its slight apologetic bent and general British perspective, but that really took off here in part 1, and when she started talking about how the Tasmanian natives were like children and couldn't count past five, and had no grammar in their language, I just found myself saying: are you f'ing kidding?
Too bad, because the audacious and ostentatious writing was pretty fun in the third volume. -
A well-written account of the creation of the British Empire in the 19th century.
While so many are enamored with the glories of wealth (mansions, balls, gowns and servants) during the Regency period, this book recalibrated my thinking with the reality that so much of Britain's wealth of this century came from slave labor and exploitation of colonies. -
This has been my companion for a few months, a total education, filling in so much of a history only covered piecemeal, relying for the most part on films, pictures and snatches of the national story. What is even better than its worthiness is its style, a combination of short, witty essays within a greater, sweep of narrative. Much atlas/Google Earth goggling has followed in its wake.
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Truly breathtaking, this book spans thousands of miles, several decades, and a mosaic of personalities as varied in colour as an Indian sunset. Morris is the Gibbon of the history of the Victorian British Empire.
