Empire: The British Imperial Experience, from 1765 to the Present - Softcover

Sub-titled The British Imperial Experience from 1765 to the Present, Professor Denis Judd’s Empire is a magisterial overview and panoramic history of the greatest empire the world has know, and pays particular attention to its impact o both the rulers and the ruled.

The British Empire radically altered the modern world. At its height, it governed over a quarter of the human race, and encompassed more than a fifth of the globe. As well as providing the British people with profits and a sense of international purpose, the Empire afforded them the opportunity to create new lives for themselves through migration and settlement. For those it dominated and controlled, the Empire often represented arbitrary power, gunboat diplomacy, the disruption of local customs and government by a distant and sometimes coldly unsympathetic administration. Yet while it rested ultimately upon military force and direct rule, the Empire also pulsated with ideals – of freedom, democracy, and even equality.

"A detailed, colony-by-colony and episode-by-episode narrative, written with great thoroughness and keen analysis. It is also very well written and will become an indispensable one-volume source for anyone concerned to know about the most important non-domestic institution created by the British during their existence as a single nation."
JOHN KEEGAN, 'Literary Review'

"Wonderfully ambitious ... a pungent and attractive survey of the British Empire from 1765 to the present."
LINDA COLLEY, 'London Review of Books'

"The best general history on the subject now available ... always stimulating and absorbing and sometimes an unrivalled tour d'horizon."
FRANK McLYNN, 'Irish Times'

"Thoroughly readable ... can be recommended to students as much as to the general reader."
C.A. BAYLY, 'Times Higher Educational Supplement'