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Unfinished Empire: The Global Expansion Of Britain (2012)

by John Darwin(Favorite Author)

4.02 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

1620400375 (ISBN13: 9781620400371)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Bloomsbury Press

review 1: Darwin tries to present a rather objective version of the story of Britain's Empire. He starts from the invasion of Ireland and finishes by the break up of the empire in the post war era. He argues that the empire was continuously in a state of arbitrary and unsystematic expansion motivated primarily by economic reasons and pioneered by individuals and make-shift armies. Unfinished Empire is a refreshing read, it tries to refute almost all other theories successfully and unsuccessfully in order to bring its new interpretation of Britain's history to the table.
review 2: I generally enjoyed it. While I didn't really learn anything new, it was on the whole quite enjoyable and easy to read. I would have preferred a few more quotes to break up the text, but the big... moregest issue I had with it was that he tended to repeat himself - a lot. And while this is potentially ok if that's the only thing you've read about the British Empire, it does get a little tiresome after a while and I did find myself shouting 'get to the point'. That being said, it is a good reference book to the history of the British Empire, and it is generally an unbiased opinion. He does leave out a lot of the atrocities committed by the British, but as the focus is more on the expansion process than I guess he can be forgiven. In a history of the British Empire you can't include everything. less

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