Empire: The rise and demise of the British world order and the lessons for global power, Niall Ferguson

I really, really liked the first 296 pages of this book. The last chapter made me so mad I almost threw it across the room.

There was so much good information about how the British built their empire, and how they ran it, that I highly recommend anyone who wants a good review of the world from 1600 to 1900 pick this book up. The first five chapters (out of six) are filled with excellent, clear writing, and great information.

And then.

The last chapter, on how the British lost their empire, starts off as apologetic and ends up positively infuriating. After 300 pages of talking about how the British treated natives in Africa and New Zealand, Ferguson describes the Japanese empire in Asia as being so horrible that anyone under British rule should have been GRATEFUL to be there. I tilted my head quizzically at the book. Of course the Rape of Nanking is one of the worst atrocities to be recorded in recent history. But the book had just gotten done talking about how the British wiped out all of the natives in New Zealand, and opened fire on the Indians in Amritsar -- and Ferguson seems upset that the British were too apologetic afterwards! That's no way to run an empire, going around being sorry you shot and killed civilians! He's even more upset that the Japanese had the temerity to treat British soldiers the way the British had been treating people of color in their empire. The worst thing you can possibly do is degrade the white people, after all. 

It was at this point that I began fuming quietly.

The attitude of the second half of the book is, "Sure, we took them over, but they LOVED us for it!" The Australians and Canadians were reluctant to gain independence! The Americans were economically misguided! The British's biggest fault was leaving TOO QUICKLY (because apparently if they'd just stayed in Palestine a little while longer they could have worked out that tricky Jewish question).

Here's the part that made me splutter incoherently and start yelling, though. The last line of the last chapter:

Yet what made [the British empire] so fine, so authentically noble, was that the Empire's victory [in WWII] 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?

Do I really need to answer that? No. No, it didn't. 

The entire book falls all over itself to say, "Yes yes, the British did bad thing [x]. But consider how much worse the Belgians/Germans/Americans/Japanese were!" Fine, but this is not a book about the Belgians/Germans/Americans/Japanese. Yes, you brought democracy to India. Yes, you gave anti-malarial medicines to Africans. How on earth does that excuse 300 years of Imperial rule? Yes, the Australians helped win WWII. I suspect they just might have done it anyway. 

SO ANGRY. I AM SO ANGRY!!

Grade: I DON'T KNOW. EITHER A B FOR GOOD WRITING OR AN F FOR FAULTY ARGUMENTS, GRRRR.

Originally posted 2008