Unfinished Empire: The Global Expansion of Britain - Softcover

"The depth of Darwin's learning is impressive.... [his] tone throughout is admirably detached and scholarly, though his dry wit keeps it well away from being boring.... [a] sharp, thoughtful, enjoyable and levelheaded book." --The New York Times Book Review

"Mr. Darwin's informative and intelligent book is ably written, and it is brimming with interesting statistics and acute observations." --The Wall Street Journal

"[A] remarkable history of the empire.... immensely important and useful. As an Englishman, Darwin declines to be either boastful or self-lacerating about the empire his country presided over, but simply examines it with a clear eye. This he has achieved to a laudable and indeed remarkable degree." --Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post

"A brilliantly perceptive analysis of the forces and ideas that drove the creation of an extraordinary enterprise ... Bringing together his huge erudition, scrupulous fairness and elegant prose, Mr Darwin has produced a wonderfully stimulating account of something that today seems almost incredibly yet was, in historical terms, only yesterday." --Economist

John Darwin's After Tamerlane, a sweeping six-hundred-year history of empires around the globe, marked him as a historian of "massive erudition" (the Guardian) and narrative mastery. In Unfinished Empire, he marshals his gifts to deliver a monumental one-volume history of Britain's imperium—a work that is sure to stand as the most authoritative and compelling treatment of the subject for a generation. It was hailed as one of the 10 best books of 2013 by Jonathan Yardley of The Washington Post.

Darwin's penetrating analysis offers a corrective to those who portray the empire as either naked exploitation or a grand "civilizing mission." Far from ever having a "master plan," the British Empire was controlled by a range of interests often at loggerheads with one another and was as much driven on by others' weaknesses as by its own strength.

Unfinished Empire is a remarkable, nuanced history of the most complex polity the world has ever known, and a serious attempt to describe the diverse, contradictory ways—military and cultural—in which empires really function.