Rating: 
Summary: Wicked
Review: If you would like to feel better about the abhorrent racism and murder that the U.K. has been responsible for then this is the book for you!
Rating: 
Summary: Iconoclastic, revisionist review of the British empire
Review: In a beautifully illustrated volume the author presents in broad brush strokes the history of the world's greatest and most expansive empire and the people who created it. Many useful historic and interpretive maps and charts are included. However, the work should not be mistaken as a history, but rather a critical analysis of the British empire: the author goes well beyond reporting and interpreting the facts in the traditional manner of historians, and glibly reinterprets them in the light of contemporary liberal opinion. He inserts many anachronistic terms and current concepts and values in order to introduce his revisionist ideas of how people should have thought and acted at the time. For example, he refers to British as "racist" (p45); the faith of pilgrims and puritans settling early America as "religious fundamentalism" (p67); John Newton is derogatorily described as "born again" (pp79, 116). He exasperates his readers by frequently mentioning names and places with no introduction or explanation as to who, what, or where they are, and liberally sprinkles the text with Latin or worse, native, terms, the meaning of which is left up the reader to guess.
Under the guise of attempting to answer the question of why Americans should care about the history of the British empire (in other words, to justify the author's US book sales) the author introduces his work with a brief diatribe on how bad the United States is. I was totally unprepared for (and quite turned off by) this unnecessary and incongruent insult to the American consciousness in a book on British imperial history. But it served to introduce the trend the author followed throughout his volume, continuously substituting the invective opinion of the critic for the unbiased reporting of the historian.
The irony of quoting Marxists in support of the author's criticism of British (and so-called American) imperialism did not go unnoticed. (In just 70 years the Soviet Marxist regime was responsible for the cruel subjugation and murder of far more people than in the entire English colonial period of over 400 years; the Marxist Chinese continue the practice today.) After outlining the pros and cons of British empire, citing examples of it being both a "good thing" and a "bad thing", the author ends his introduction with the hope that enough material will be presented for the reader to make up his own mind as the merits of the empire. But no such grace is extended to the brief recounting of American international activity, unilaterally labeling it a "bad thing". In fact, no real opportunity is afforded the reader to come to his own conclusions about the British or American "empires", as the author constantly does that for him.
No innovations are offered in the treatment of the American revolution, continuing the typical British sour grapes viewpoint that the colonists overreacted to minor inconveniences imposed by the Crown, and that taxation or the lack of its representation had nothing to do with the revolt (p90). Ferguson describes the Boston Tea "Party" as an event organized not by irate overcharged consumers but by Boston's wealthy smugglers who stood to lose money if the tea were allowed in to the port.
In his ongoing harangue of anything Christian, the author speciously and unconvincingly labels the Sepoy Rebellion in mid 19th century India as a direct result of evangelicals' interference in Hindu religion and culture. Yet he acknowledges that the supposed instigation of the rebellion (army rifle cartridges impregnated by animal fat by Christians) never happened, and thousands of Hindu natives fought alongside of British soldiers against their rebellious "cousins". In reality the infrequent and inappropriate cries of "holy war" were drowned by claims of the real material inequalities suffered by the Sepoys.
The text is a bombastic attack on British imperialism and anything the author associates with it, such as Christian evangelicalism. Though he inadvertently laces his text with traces of nationalism, his primary effort is the tired revisionist approach of the armchair historian who iconoclastically reinterprets events from the view of contemporary liberal hindsight.
Rating: 
Summary: No other alternative to modernity. Britain or Hitler? Choose
Review: In his book, Empire, Professor Niall Ferguson argues that the British Empire was the grand provider of five institutions for the world: "the triumph of capitalism as the optimal system of economic organization", "the Anglicization of North America and Australasia", "the internationalization of the English language", "the enduring influence of the Protestant version of Christianity", and "the survival of parliamentary institutions, which far worse empires were poised to extinguish in the 1940s". While acknowledging that empires are far from perfect, Ferguson allows the reader to decide "whether there could have been a less bloody path to modernity." In the brief conclusion, he identifies America being in the same role Britain was for four centuries and the lessons it can learn from its forebear.In each of Empire's six chapters, Ferguson gives a distinct theme both in terms of globalization and the human dynamics, chronologically weaving the two together, e.g. commodity markets/pirates, labour markets/planters, culture/missionaires, government/mandarins, capital markets/bankers, and warfare/bankruptcies. Ferguson points out that the British were imitating the empires at the time, and that despite perceptions that England was the first industrial nation, posits the fact that Spain and Portugal were in the imperial vanguard by the time the British acquired its first possession, Jamaica, in 1655. China and India were homes to the imports the British craved, but there was nothing the British had that those two countries wanted, so the British had to make cash purchases with gold and silver bullion. The significance of this trading arrangement led to globalization, "the integration of the world as a single market" Ferguson does not omit the darker moments, such as the Myall Creek Massacre in Australia (1838), the brutally crushed Morant Bay uprising in Jamaica (1865), and the massacre of Amristar (1919). Yet he places culpability on misguided groups and individuals who were aberrations in the role of British administrators, weighing in with the presence of a distant "restraining authority" in London to halt the excesses of their colonists, a dynamic not present during the American campaign against the Native Americans. The good intentions the British had can be labelled as the three C's: commerce, civilization, and Christianity. Ferguson then lists a fourth "C" that unfortunately emerged in conjunction with the other three: conquest. The reasons for the Empire's fall, is World War I, post-war territorial overstretch from the Ottoman Empire and Germany, and a tenfold increase in the national debt. Reduced defense spending thus allowed Hitler and Mussolini to run riot in the 1930's. The former criticized the British for being too lenient on their people and expecting enthusiasm from their subjects. He also briefly goes into the Japanese atrocities at Nanking. India could have used WWII to break free, "but ... had to look at the way the Japanese conducted themselves... to see how much worse the alternative before them was". Then there were nationalist uprisings, such as the Easter Rising in Ireland (1916) and the one in Amritsar; what they both revealed was the schizophrenic nature of the British response: "harsh on the ground but then emollient at the top." Ferguson accounts for the darker moments and failures of the British Empire, but in a broad context, concludes as follows: "In the end, the British sacrificed her Empire to stop the Germans, Japanese, and Italians from keeping theirs. Did not that sacrifice along expunge all the Empire's other sins?" Ferguson heavily tilts the emphasis on economic, with military and administrative dynamics coming in a close tied second. The last part of the title, "the Lessons for Global Power," tells Americans to take the initiative and realize that their country is traversing down the same road as Britain. Ferguson uses a few techniques to make this book eye-grabbing. One is the use of contemporary phrases on past events. The laying out of telegraph wires on the ocean floor--an "imperial information superhighway." How the telegraph and steamship shrank the world is reminiscent of how the Internet has done so from the late 1990's. His use of contemporary expressions extend to recent events. He likens the Mahdi in Sudan as an 1880's version of Osama bin Laden, the massacre of General Gordon and his forces as a miniature 11 September, and the 1898 Battle of Omdurman to the Gulf War and the war against the Taliban, hinting at the similarities between the British then and America now. He also uses maps and statistical figures, which contributes to the Empire's economic dynamics. And he peppers the book with paintings, political cartoons, many of them unflattering towards the British Empire, and black-and-white photographs. I found this book very fascinating despite its subtle nationalist bent, explaining blank spots in my knowledge of the British imperial experience, and seeing it from a predominantly economic perspective helped. Empire will definitely contribute to the debate between those who justify America's status in the global arena as the economic weltmeister and those who believe the claws of imperial America are buried deep in the haunches of the Earth's carcass, sucking up the world's resources.
Rating:
Summary: American Empire?
Review: In this book Ferguson makes a case for Pax Americana (which he articulates further in newspaper articles and interviews). But at the core of the ideas of "empire" and "imperialism" are two sharp distinctions: one between rulers and subjects, AND another between masters and slaves/servants. These distinctions are very clear in all empires in history, whether Roman, Mongol, or British. Ferguson's argument is in two parts. First, that America is an empire "in denial," one that "dares not speak its name." He cites the growth of the country as evidence: settlement from Europe, the ruthless elimination of natives (i.e., Indians), enslavement (of blacks), foreign aggression (against Mexico), etc. All these are undoubtedly characteristics of "empire-building" and "imperialism." (The British did much more, including selling dope by force, as in China.) The second part of his argument is that America should continue to extend and expand its "imperial" reach overseas - and Iraq is America's first base in the Middle East. My answer to the first part is this: what makes American imperialism different from all these other ones in history - including the British - is its outspoken and deliberate egalitarianism, its sense of fairness and equality. While there has always been a gap between their ideals and what they actually practise, the truth is that their egalitarian instinct makes it difficult for them to tolerate the two basic distinctions present in empires mentioned above. In the end the Americans fought a Revolution (1776-1783) to remove the first - that between rulers (Britain) and subjects (colonials); then they fought a bitter war (1861-65) to get rid of the second - that between masters (whites) and slaves (blacks). My feeling is that Americans are unlikely to bring back these distinctions, which they must if they are to build an empire in the British mould. (That's why President Bush keeps repeating that Americans are going to Iraq to give them "freedom" - not new masters. He is reflecting his own people's deep feelings.) As for building an empire now, whether this is even possible is a tough question, quite apart from whether this is desirable. Of course, if possible the first place for Americans to occupy militarily (thus control) would be the oil-rich Middle East: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, UAE, in addition to Iraq. (There's not much use in having sub-Saharan Africa these days - as the Europeans soon learned, to their surprise.) I need elaborate no further if America so much as tries to "Indianize" the Middle East (i.e., occupy by force as the British did in the whole Indian subcontinent, well-described in this book). Either we get World War III, or one million brand new Bin Ladens. This book also covers the British Empire in a positive light. Honestly, Ferguson's book stacks up well against my other ones on the British Empire (including the Oxford Histories). I must say that on reflection Ferguson has a point, at least where the merits of the British Empire are concerned. I don't know if Pakistan would have existed without the British involvement, and Africa would have been even worse off today without association with Britain. China benefited the most from the aggression of the British Empire, but in reality they could not establish any significant colonial bases there. The British legacy in the Middle East must be bitter sweet for the colonialists. They helped the Arabs get rid of their Ottoman masters, awoke Arab nationalism, and made their independence possible. And the British left the Middle East just at the moment when oil was found. Ferguson's dream for America in the future, however, is another matter. (Incidentally it is very nearly opposite in substance to Samuel Huntington's harebrained scheme for a reverse containment of the West.) My kindest words for this idea would be "off the wall" and "unrealistic."
Rating:
Summary: Dreadful apologia for empire
Review: In this book of the TV series, Ferguson attempts to survey the British Empire's history and impact on the world. In the earlier chapters, he makes a reasonable job of telling the story truthfully, but when he reaches the 20th century, his imbecile political opinions wreck the narrative. He depicts the Empire's bloody origins in piracy and theft. He shows how the British people bore the Empire's costs, how the Indian people paid for the Indian Army, while the Empire's gains accrued only to a tiny minority of bondholders, and how the export of India's riches led to the vast famines of the 18th and 19th centuries. He accurately describes the imperial slogan `Commerce and Christianity' as theft and fundamentalism. He praises the Empire's `capital export to the less developed world', as if investment was about giving not taking. The investment should have been in British industry. He blames trade unions for the Great Depression - "Rising real wages led to unemployment" - unpardonable economic illiteracy from a Professor of Economics. He blames World War Two on a `descent into protectionism' rather than on the continuing rivalry between empires. He writes that the USA was the key to victory - so not the ally that destroyed 90% of Nazi forces? He writes that Britain "sacrificed her Empire to stop the German, Japanese and Italians keeping theirs. Did not that sacrifice alone expunge all the Empire's other sins?" (A strangely Catholic doctrine!) But Churchill thought he had saved the Empire, only to find that the USA nipped in and stole it! And the answer to Ferguson's question is still no. He sneers that anti-imperialism is linked to anti-semitism, sneers about `conspiracy theories' about oil, sneers about `freedom fighters' (his inverted commas), sneers about the Soviet and Chinese achievements. As usual with reactionaries, he poses as bravely saying unpopular truths, while actually just retreading the hoariest, most discredited, clichés. He ends by calling ludicrously for the USA to set up a formal empire, a universal `political globalisation'! Book, TV series and author are as showy and shallow as was the Empire itself.
Rating: 
Summary: Engaging read but not scholarly sound
Review: In this engaging read, Niall Ferguson tries to explain the importance of the British Empire in the world today. He argues that the British Empire gave the world liberty, democracy and paved way for globalization. He makes a very convincing but ultimately flawed argument. How can a colonial power give liberty and democracy and liberty to the countries it's colonizing? Is not liberty and democracy something that comes from within? True, in many cases like India, the British did set up democratic institutions when they left, but there was certainly no liberty when they were colonizing, at least for the 'natives'. Liberty is defined as "the right and power to act, believe, or express oneself in a manner of one's own choosing and as "the condition of being physically and legally free from confinement, servitude, or forced labor". This certainly was not the case for the 'natives' in India, South Africa or any of the other colonies of Britain. The British, though, did respect these rights more than the other colonists, and offered, atleast on paper, some sort of quasi-democratic institutions in their colonies, but this does not qualify as giving liberty to their colonies.
Mr. Ferguson stresses on this point, arguing that the alternative to the British Empire was other much viler empires, like the Japanese or the Germans. So is Mr. Ferguson trying to imply that only taken in the context of its peers does the British Empire amount to anything good? I would definitely think so. But, even this argument is specious. The British too committed heinous crimes against humanity. What about the Jallianwallah Bagh massacre in 1919? What about the battle of Omdurman in 1898? What about the concentration camps in South Africa in the early 1900s? Mr. Ferguson does describe these in his book, and it does him credit. But, one would have to underplay these facts to accept the British Empire as a great force of liberty and democracy in the world.
Also, the sources Mr. Ferguson uses are horrendously biased. In describing 200 years of colonial rule in India, for example, he uses no Indian sources. All his sources are British, how can he gauge the effectiveness of the British Empire if he relies solely on British sources?
Overall, this book is well written and is supplemented by stunning images. But, Mr. Ferguson could have presented a more centrist view.
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Summary: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Empire
Review: It is exceedingly difficult to challenge Ferguson's bold claim that the British Empire, despite all its vices (e.g. the Sudan "imperial overkill" in 1898) and regrettable vestiges (e.g. slavery and racism), was essentially 'good' because it disseminated certain -unquestionably desirable- features of the British society that range from the "idea of liberty" to "team sports," and most importantly to capitalism and representative democracy. It is difficult to discard Ferguson's claim at once mainly because of the strong prima facie evidence that there actually is a connection between British rule and the "enhanced global welfare." Yet inferring causality from this connection, and more importantly making an essentially normative judgment (i.e. British empire was good for the colonized states because they prospered ultimately) is much more problematic than Ferguson portrays it. I have two main criticisms: one involves Ferguson's treatment of the imported British values as a single and indivisible package that can be absorbed by the colonized in its entirety, and the other one has to do with the methodological difficulties associated with the "counterfactual logic" that informs Ferguson's historical analysis. Let me start with the latter. In the introductory chapter of the book, Ferguson lists the values that the British Empire disseminates to the rest of the globe and then he asks the following question: "would other empires have produced the same effects?" "It seems doubtful," according to Ferguson. The main support for this counterfactual claim comes from such anecdotal and again counterfactual evidence as "New Amsterdam [would not] be the New York we know today if the Dutch had not surrendered it to the British in 1664." From the strict social scientific point of view, however, this reasoning is essentially flawed since it is not falsifiable. Consider Ferguson's argument in terms of the "necessary and sufficient conditions" that inform social scientific inquiry. Does Ferguson argue that British colonization is a "sufficient" condition for the emergence of capitalism and representative democracy in the former colonies? Highly unlikely, I would say, given such failures in the consolidation of democracy as in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Burma, Tanzania and Zimbabwe to name a few. What about the existence of former British rule in a country as a necessary condition for capitalism and democracy? This is probably closer to Ferguson's portrayal of the connection between imperialism and democracy/capitalism. However, this conceptualization is still quite problematic. Even if we accept Ferguson's claim that British Empire was better than any other conceivable empire, the question of necessary conditions still stands because of a crucial flaw in Ferguson's historical account: the lack of consideration of an alternative to imperial rule. Underlying Ferguson's entire analysis is a tacit assumption that imperial rule was practically inescapable. India was to be ruled by either the Moghuls or the British, and since the British built so many railways in India, established the institutions of a future parliamentary democracy and taught the Indians the English language (which would in the future make them the most desirable technicians in multinational high tech companies) the latter was better for the Indians. Yet it is very tempting to use the counterfactual reasoning against Ferguson and ask whether it would be possible for India, or for any other country, to embrace capitalism and parliamentary democracy in the absence of the British? If there is any such possibility, that would complicate Ferguson's picture. If the Indians could have established a working parliamentary democracy, without having to endure the imperialism, (i.e. all the benefits of the modern world minus the costs of foreign rule) this should be more appealing than the imperial path, especially to an economically minded historian like Ferguson. The theoretical problem is not only the possibility of an alternative, i.e. non-imperial, route to modernity. What is more significant and disturbing is that in arguing the British' imposition of their own image on the colonies -however innately desirable that image can be- was essentially a good thing, Ferguson loses sight of the fact that imperialism is an interactive process with two parties. The values and institutions of the colonized clash those of the colonizer and filter the absorption of certain elements of that package. "The idea of liberty," the central component of Ferguson's package of the imported British values, is more difficult to entrench in a country than the actual parliamentary institutions. Yet the problem is without the former being fully entrenched, the latter cannot work properly. The result has been unstable democracies, and incomplete modernities in many former colonies. Consequently, it is difficult to judge whether the British rule facilitated the emergence of democracy in colonized countries or precluded its full-scale consolidation. True that it is highly difficult to conceptualize a process of dissemination of western values without a strong agency to "carry the burden," which is what makes Ferguson's portrayal of the role of the British Empire in the formation of the contemporary global order so appealing. Difficult but by no means impossible. In fact, since the underlying assumption that directly informs Ferguson's passionate analysis is that both capitalism and representative democracy are innately desirable, it would be logically erroneous to argue that the dissemination of these values would preclude a more peaceful process of modernization.
Rating:
Summary: Living in a British world
Review: It is not Niall Ferguson's intent to rewrite or beautify the history of the British Empire--although he started as a young enthusiast for the British Empire, after he studied history more meticulously, he came to realize that the costs of the empire had "substantially outweighed" the benefits. Instead, Mr. Ferguson takes on a more modest thesis: that Britain made the modern world.
As ambitious as this sounds, Mr. Ferguson is careful in his formulation: for much, though not all, of its history, the British Empire "acted as an agency for imposing free markets, the rule of law, investor protection and relatively incorrupt governments on roughly a quarter of the globe." It did so by exporting certain features of its society (English language, common law, respect for liberty, banking, representative assemblies, and others) that underwrote and fuelled the most significant period of globalization (or Anglobalization) that the world had experienced to date.
From this bold thesis comes a tightly argued and narrated history of the British Empire. In the process of the argument, Mr. Ferguson tackles certain conventional hypothesis (for example, he disagrees that the British Empire was set up in an absence of mind) and covers the basic components of the Empire by examining the roles of pirates, planters, missionaries, mandarins, bankers and bankrupts.
The end product is an elegant history that escapes the narrow debate between costs and benefits in evaluating the impact of the British Empire; in fact, Mr. Ferguson's contribution would lie much to the fact that he has changed the axes for judgment rather than supporting one or another position. And his underlying position, than in the absence of British rule, our world would be much different (and probably worse) will strike many as rather provocative if not presumptuous. But if there were ever a case to be made for that proposition, then it is nowhere better formulated than in the "Empire."
Rating:
Summary: At last ... "must read" history
Review: Let's start with the reviews. When you read them, try to keep in mind the simple fact that this book is both describing an historical era (the British Empire) and assessing it. Not all historians do the latter; and too many are content to do a boring job of the former. I think Ferguson does a superb job on both fronts, but it is nonetheless possible to disagree with his assessment of the empire while admiring his well-paced narrative and lavishly illustrated survey of it. How the Empire came into being; why it was British (as opposed to Spanish, Dutch or other); how it operated; how it was funded; who its beneficiaries were; what it did badly; the horrors of which it was guilty;piracy on high seas, the slave trade, its role in Africa, India, Australia, Ireland and elsewhere: Niall Ferguson captures it all. But not just that..He is interested in applying the lesson of Empire to the world today. It is the modern world, after all, that the Empire shaped for better or worse. And here we arrive at Ferguson's assessment. Readers might take issue with a balance sheet approach to the Empire, and they make take issue with the evaluation itself, but in providing us with such an assessment Ferguson brings the Empire to life in these pages. On net, the Empire was a positive good, if only because "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?" Ferguson thinks so. I agree. Others may not. You don't need to agree with his conclusions, but you cannot walk away from the question, for now the United States is poised to be an Empire -- an Empire in denial in Ferguson's view -- and whether and to what extent the U.S. should assume, or can assume the role of an imperial power is upon us all. What do you think? This is what Ferguson is asking us to do in this outstanding work, in effecting saying: Here's the historical framework, here's what I make of it. Well, what do you think? Read Empire. Re-read it. Like it or not, the question of Empire is upon us.
Rating:
Summary: great book
Review: Many Americans need to read this book and consider its perspective.
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