empire: how britain made the modern world review
Should globalization be taken to mean little more than the far-flung existence of even limited economic activity involving a major power’s (e.g. All pages are intact, and the cover is intact. It is strange that someone such as Ferguson, well-acquainted with thinking about virtual history, other possible outcomes to any chance sequence of events, and alternative futures, should comprehensively ignore this analytical dimension in the case of empire. xix-xx), but also to earlier eras or phases of globalization. There is a fuzziness here in the handling of globalization, whether as concept, descriptive category, or economic process, that needs to be cleared away. Niall Ferguson's compelling tour de force, Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World is published to coincide with a Channel 4 TV series. At its peak it governed a quarter of the world's land and people and dominated all its seas. Inevitably there will be those who wonder whether such over-simplifications are not merely the product of a television producer’s requirements triumphing over the historian’s need for greater attention to the difficulty of presenting major historical problems in any visual format. By this yardstick, the British empire was ‘a good thing’, British rule being largely supportive of economic growth. In demonstrating that fortunately-placed individuals, particular social classes and identifiable types of business, in both metropole and colonies, gained or lost in varying degrees and at different times, they argued convincingly for a more discriminating and modulated scrutiny of the empire’s political economy than was then available. Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World (2003), Ferguson’s next book, appeared in America with a more didactic subtitle: ‘The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power’. Stark intellectual polarities, however, can be a snare and delusion especially in the history of empire, so riddled as it is with complexities and ambiguity. Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World by Niall Ferguson 392pp, Allen Lane, £25 Empire, it seems, is coming out of the closet. This was from the start an insurmountable problem for a subject rightly treated as global in scope, which also demanded a chronological coverage from the late sixteenth to the early twenty-first century. That said, however, the visual aspects of the programmes and the illustrations in the book are often splendid and fresh to the eye. The dominant theme he wields in order to corral untidy detail is that of ‘globalization’, a process in which Britain’s empire more than any other agency promoted ‘the optimal allocation of labour, capital and goods in the world’ (p. xx). This astoundingly successful, superbly reviewed book vividly recreates the excitement, brutality and adventure of the British Empire. Corpus ID: 150369240. Occasional references are made, for instance, to the possibility of a French not a British victory in mid-eighteenth-century India. General Information . However, doing justice to complex issues can also be understood in different ways. xxiv-xxv). Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World (2003), Ferguson’s next book, appeared in America with a more didactic subtitle: ‘The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power’. The work of regional historians gives grounds for disputing such an assumption, and thus for questioning perceptions of backwardness and modernity conditioned in the west, but Ferguson does not pay it any attention. Just fill in your details. A capitalist forces whisky down the victim’s throat, while the rack, manipulated by a soldier, extrudes gold from his rectum. Nevertheless, precisely the same points are made on the page, decked out with the same catchy or demotic phraseology. Though little now remains of the Empire as a political power, its legacy is all around us. Ferguson has a quick eye for the riveting analogy – New South Wales, ‘the eighteenth-century equivalent of Mars’, where Australians ‘started out as a nation of shoplifters’ (pp. Please. Ferguson has no doubt that Empire ‘enhanced global welfare – in other words was a Good Thing’. These are the crucial questions addressed by Niall Ferguson in "Empire". His terminology refers to ‘modern globalization’ (pp. Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World by Ferguson, Niall An apparently unread copy in perfect condition. Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? It was almost everywhere far too multi-faceted or ambiguous for the application of crude general labels, ‘good’ or ‘bad’, to do justice to the complex issues involved. History’s easier when empire is just empire. It is easy to find examples of conventionally wholly critical or uncritical judgements on empire, but Ferguson is misguided in assuming that these persist in the absence of an historical literature providing material for more discriminating and nuanced assessments of empire’s record. Shelves: 2019-100-reviews, travel-adventure-countries, 2018-read, reviewed, history, caribbean, popculture-anthropology. Empire HowBritainmadethemodernworld N.Ferguson August 21 - August 28, 2005 The subtitle indicates that this is, if not exactly a celebration, at least a substantial apology of the British Empire. Registered in England No. The dust jacket is missing. Le livre de Niall Ferguson retrace l'histoire de l'épopée du peuple britannique, venu tardivement à la compétition. Such points about the reception of Ferguson’s work in their limited way parallel the historic experience and impact of empire itself. Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World @inproceedings{Ferguson2002EmpireHB, title={Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World}, author={N. Ferguson}, year={2002} } This last observation directs us not only to the compatibility of continuing globalization with partially-closed economies, but also to the limitations of free trade arrangements historically associated with the pursuit of an open global economy. With Niall Ferguson, John Sessions. xviii-xix). He offsets the brutality and destruction associated with slavery, piracy, and events such as the Morant Bay rebellion (1865) or the Amritsar massacre (1919), with factual information to illustrate the triumph of capitalism, the spread of parliamentary institutions, the growth of literacy, recognition of the virtues of the minimal state, and the rule of law (pp. Contrary to much current thinking, Ferguson wishes us to accept that the priority attached by Britain to free trade, free labour migration, and unfettered capital movements, was beneficial to Britain itself, to its empire, and to the world at large. As befits any public performer, Ferguson is fond of catching his audience’s attention with striking juxtapositions of images and arguments. In both cases, Ferguson metes out rough justice to complexity. Interested in reviewing for us? Turns out Britain was a late starter in the empire game and followed the likes of France and Portugal. Buy Empire at Amazon.co.uk. Cuttings, for example from the same colourful Indian scene, provide the backdrop or continuity on more than one occasion. When one man’s optimum can so easily encompass another’s poverty, just as orthodoxy and heresy may be interchangeable, these can too easily become weasel words, traps for the unwary even if the statistics of measurement such as GDP are to be relied upon, which often they are not. Made the Modern World . The book in one respect at least is more modest – readers are not treated to the screen’s many instances of full-frontal Ferguson poised to make eye contact with a key pronouncement about liberty or slaves. ← Niall Ferguson: Empire (How Britain Made the Modern World) – Heaven’s Breed. Infact, at first the Brits simply robbed others, like the Spaniards, as they couldnt find their own supplies of silver/gold. Ferguson, however, seems in effect to argue that the association of global economic growth with both the element of redistribution inherent in the workings of a free-market system, and the existence of Britain’s free-trade empire, were sufficient – as Lewis Carroll would put it – for all to have prizes. Niall Ferguson Londres, Allen Lane, 2003, 392 pages . It was, of course, greatly to Britain’s own advantage as the world’s major industrial power for much of the nineteenth century that she should insist on the expansion of free trade, while at the same time facing little serious competition in the new markets she was exploiting. The … Surely there must be lessons for others to follow and to avoid in an empire. They also proved beyond doubt the crucial incidence of taxation and the costs of defence to any assessment of costs and benefits. In particular A. G. Hopkins, Globalization in World History (London, 2002); and Global History: Interactions Between the Universal and the Local, ed. In fact it has become fashionable to divide mankind Consider his inclusion in the bibliography to Chapter 5 of Robert Huttenback’s and Lance Davis’s Mammon and the Pursuit of Empire (Cambridge University Press; Cambridge), a book extensively debated when it appeared in 1986. Buy Empire at Amazon.co.uk . Read honest and unbiased product reviews from our users. 246-7). Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World by Niall Ferguson (Penguin, £25). 894646. Reviews in History is part of the School of Advanced Study. Ferguson evidently wishes to do both of these things. 'The most brilliant British historian of his generation ... Ferguson examines the roles of "pirates, planters, missionaries, mandarins, bankers and bankrupts" in the creation of history's largest empire … Niall Ferguson argues that the British Empire was an overall good entity and today’s modern world needs another nation to step up and be a world leader. Please, The subscription details associated with this account need to be updated. It is more important, however, to recognise that the prominence of war and economic protection or monopolization meant that the characteristics of that earlier age were very different from, and the process of globalization was largely driven by forces unlike, those that Ferguson suggests operated during the British-dominated phase of globalization after 1850. In seeking to argue that the empire was not economically bad for both Britain and her colonies, Ferguson sets up an Aunt Sally no less grand and vulnerable than that constructed by some of the historians he criticises. Empire: the rise and demise of the British world order and the lessons for global power User Review - Not Available - Book Verdict First published in England last year (with the shorter subtitle How Britain Made the Modern World), this is intended as a cautionary tale for the United States. Ferguson does deal with the local … The programmes are certainly best seen well spaced. Ferguson’s own ‘on-balance-beneficial’ legacy of empire offers no new insight but rather the refurbishment of a much older conventional – some would say Whiggish – wisdom. First, it is surely necessary to bear in mind that the pattern of free trade, particularly in the form of unlimited exchange of foodstuffs and raw materials for manufactured capital and consumer goods, generally operates over any significant period of time to the decided disadvantage of commodity producers. General Information . The extension of her empire not least contributed to the global growth of GDP, because Britain was the ‘least protectionist’ of all the great powers. As for ‘globalization’, now well-established as a fashionable resort for the conceptually starved, what does one make of the claim that it optimises the allocation of material resources? For example, the movement from British abolition of the slave trade to the emancipation of the empire’s slaves was far less smooth and confident than is suggested here (p. 122). The discovery of America in 1492 clearly was a watershed in world history, and the initial benificaries of the extended After all, Ferguson’s book is very much the book of the film, a fleshier version of what is for the most part clearly spelt out on the screen. A last comment relates still more directly to the persistent issue of costs and benefits. Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Empire : How Britain Made the Modern World at Amazon.com. Posted on February 7, 2010 by Maximilian C. Forte. Ferguson's most revolutionary and popular work, EMPIRE is a major reinterpretation of the British Empire as one of the world's greatest modernising forces. There are many suns setting, plenty of light on water, frequent shots of Ferguson in boats or canoes, the sound of his foot-fall on floorboards crossing to a window or to a mahogany table for displaying a document. History Documentary hosted by Niall Ferguson, published by Channel 4 in 2003 - English narration [] Cover[] InformationHistorian and presenter Niall Ferguson takes us on a fascinating journey in both time and space to explore the impact of the British empire on the modern world. Journal DOI: 10.14296/RiH/issn.1749.8155 | Cookies | Privacy | Contact Us, http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,891477,00.html. From the point of view of personal enrichment, Ferguson himself doubtless found the operation of the free media market a very good thing, as will his publisher. Whatever the problems presented by that work (and they were numerous), Davis and Huttenback confirmed above all the need to ask of imperial commitments and colonial possessions who benefited, from what, and when. Sir Charles Dilke’s book Problems of Greater Britain (Macmillan; London, 1890) is mentioned, but not his earlier Greater Britain (Macmillan; London, 1868), presumably because that would upset an argument linking the term ‘Greater Britain’ to J. R. Seeley’s Expansion of England (London; Macmillan) published in 1883 (pp. Use the HTML below. It shows on a vast canvas how the British Empire in the 19th Century spearheaded real globalisation with … Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders. 111-13). Doubtless the balance of power and wealth among, and so the contribution made by, participating states was then different from that which developed later on; and ‘globalization’ had perhaps not yet become global in its reach. Furthermore, in Ferguson’s contemporary age of ‘modern globalization’, echoes of the early modern period are to be found in the way in which world economic patterns are decisively shaped by the protectionist agenda of the United States and the states which have come to make up the European Union, notably in respect of their domestic agriculture. Contrary to much current thinking, Ferguson wishes us to accept that the priority attached by Britain to free trade, free labour migration, and unfettered capital movements, was beneficial to Britain itself, to its empire, and to the world at large. How is it to be understood, either in chronological terms, or functionally? Title: Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World (2003– ) 7.3 /10. Share this Rating. Arrangements optimal for the continued working of a system of exchange may not necessarily be so when assessed in terms of individual or even communal wellbeing. The empire, Ferguson explains in his book written to accompany the Channel 4 series which started last Thursday, originated in piracy, unrolled in slavery, practised outrages and atrocities and struggled to “play the role of world policeman with a straight face”. See details - Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World by Ferguson, Niall. The second follows from that: free trade cannot necessarily be equated with freedom of choice and opportunity. (Jan Morris). Outsourcing Empire: How Company-States Made the Modern World, Andrew Phillips, JC Sharman (Princeton University Press, June 2020) Outsourcing Empire suffers from the apparent drawback that its thesis seems self-evident once stated. Hence, as Donald Denoon demonstrated in his Settler Capitalism (Clarendon; Oxford, 1983), temperate lands of white settlement, faced with exclusion from industrial and manufacturing options, not only evolved their own forms of capitalism but did so largely irrespective of their colonial or independent status. This astoundingly successful, superbly reviewed book vividly recreates the excitement, brutality and adventure of the British Empire. Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World. Soon however the British moved onto their own kind of white gold; sugar. Considering the published output, as with ‘the empire’ of the past, this is in many respects a pointless question, for the answer depends on where questioners stand and what in particular they choose to look at. About the SeriesHistorian and presenter Niall Ferguson takes us on a fascinating journey in both time and space to explore the impact of the British empire on the modern world. By this yardstick, the British empire … There is much in the history of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to support the view that a process of globalization was also then underway. Add to cart. It may be debated whether there was a distinctly ‘early modern globalization’, or merely an earlier phase of a single process. That surely represents a significant retreat from the ground so usefully opened up to debate some fifteen years ago. ("New York Review of Books"). In Niall Ferguson’s view, one of his well- selected pictures seems fairly to sum up the British Empire: a German caricature of 1904, in which Britons cheerfully torture a black man. History Documentary hosted by Niall Ferguson, published by Channel 4 in 2003 - English narration [] Cover[] InformationHistorian and presenter Niall Ferguson takes us on a fascinating journey in both time and space to explore the impact of the British empire on the modern world. Arresting, yes, but not always apposite (for reasons which, in this case, Joseph Banks might have explained), and so at risk of disguising reality with cosmetic flippancy. In both cases, ‘globalization’ is apparently a continuing feature, albeit one, Ferguson seems to suggest, in which the phase 1850-1914 was characterised by the economic equalization of incomes, and the second half of the twentieth century was one of mounting economic divergence and inequality. Ferguson, author of The Pity of War and The Cash Nexus, does not so much provide a synoptic survey of the British empire since the 17th century, as an arresting argument about why it arose, and how it fell. A. G. Hopkins (London, 2006).Back to (3) Niall Ferguson, Empire: How Britain made the Modern World (London, 2003), p. xxii.Back to (4) It gave the world its common language, English. It laid the foundation for the global triumph of capitalism. What was the point of all this activity, including as it did a two year crash-course in selected reading from the recent subject literature and extensive globe-trotting? Ferguson, author of The Pity of War and The Cash Nexus, does not so much provide a synoptic survey of the British empire since the 17th century, as an arresting argument about why it arose, and how it fell.Ferguson's emphasis throughout is on the … After alternative histories, it is perhaps worth probing further Ferguson’s use of the term ‘globalization’. Buy Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World 01 by Ferguson, Niall (ISBN: 9780141987910) from Amazon's Book Store. From January to mid-February 2003 six one-hour television programmes, four lectures to substantial audiences in the University of London’s Senate House, and a large glossy book have been devoted to his theme of ‘empire’ or, as he also puts it, ‘how Britain made the modern world’. Britain’s) nationals? Consecutive videos are too likely to impress viewers with the limits to both the range of available visual devices and the film-maker’s budget. Spain's Road to Empire by Henry Kamen
Empire: how Britain made the modern world by Niall Ferguson Piers Brendon finds that Europe's greatest empires both failed to practise what they preached Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World by Niall Ferguson Allen Lane £25, pp416. 514 reviews. The British Empire is famously said to have been formed almost absentmindedly. This need for clarity is further indicated by Ferguson’s lack of sustained attention to the history of globalization stretching back well before 1815. Its messages have nonetheless not been taken heed of here. Niall Ferguson's acclaimed Empire brilliantly unfolds the imperial story in all its splendours and its miseries, showing how a gang of buccaneers and gold-diggers planted the seed of the biggest empire in all history - and set the world on the road to modernity. What were the special factors that enabled Britain to make the modern world - and made the modern world so British? Registered office: 1 London Bridge Street, SE1 9GF. Far from updating our view of empire, in highlighting the interplay of ‘liberty’ and ‘slavery’, Ferguson looks backward to an outdated literature, and at times is consequently wide of the mark – as when assessing the significance of the Durham Report as ‘the book which saved the empire’ (pp. From the earliest British settlers in Virginia to the decline of the empire in the aftermath of the two World Wars, positive and negative aspects of the empire are illustrated through key events and players.Niall Ferguson uses a … Documentary: “Taxi to the Dark Side” → Niall Ferguson: Empire (How Britain Made the Modern World) – Maxim Force. Among the latter was Jon Wilson in The Guardian (8 February 2003), condemning (with an alliteration worthy of Ferguson himself) what appeared to him a ‘glossy glorification of imperial violence’, possessing a tendency to ‘encourage policy based on a version of the history of empire that is simply wrong’.(1). The central question of the book is to ... Read full review From then onwards Ferguson seems to allow that the global accumulation of wealth was promoted only by an increasing absence of restraint on the movement of people (labour migration), the flow of capital (external investment), and produce from land (overseas commerce). Niall Ferguson: Empire (How Britain Made the Modern World) – The Mission Posted on February 6, 2010 by Maximilian C. Forte From the Channel 4 television series by Niall Ferguson (one of this seminar’s “new imperialists”), which accompanies his book by the same title. Ferguson himself refers in passing to the seventeenth century’s ‘globalization with gunboats’ (p.18). This begs many questions. The British Empire is the world's largest empire and ushered in the modern age. Ferguson's most revolutionary and popular work, EMPIRE is a major reinterpretation of the British Empire as one of the world's greatest modernising forces. Clearly there never was, at least not initially, a clear prospect of colonial conquest, and in fact as far as empire goes, England was a late starter. Niall Ferguson's compelling tour de force, Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World is published to coincide with a Channel 4 TV series. The word ‘empire’ still caused some unease in the US, whose own national myths originated in an early, short-lived and selective anti-imperialism. Alternatively, it can entail the ruthless imposition of dominant themes on a heap of fact, winnowing and threshing until a mountain of factual chaff has been bagged and fairly stored in its proper – subordinate – place. Allen Lane £25, pp416. The great variety of combinations of climate, geographical position, and natural endowment of resources, inevitably mean that each territory may be more or less well-placed to find its own niche in the range of economic openings prevailing at any one time. Nearby, a churchman sermonises myopically. Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include previous owner inscriptions. The extension of her empire not least contributed to the global growth of GDP, because Britain was the ‘least protectionist’ of all the great powers. review of another edition. At the same time, however, Ferguson seems to believe that for most areas of the world the experience of imperial rule offered the only way to the future. The demonstration of complexity may take the form of impressing audiences with inescapable detail, illustrating in the process the inadequacy of current generalizations and conventional views. This he does by drawing out the legacies of Britain’s empire. I got a very readable history that begins with Morgan's piracy and follows the accretion of power and wealth to its zenith. There is little evidence of an opportunity being taken to refine arguments rather than thicken narrative. Britain’s many colonial wars in the nineteenth century and beyond were an essential aid to the incorporation of new territories into her own empire, and to the expansion of free trade both within her colonies and into areas beyond the reach of her direct rule. In Niall Ferguson’s view, one of his well- selected pictures seems fairly to sum up the British Empire: a German caricature of 1904, in which Britons cheerfully torture a black man. It can surely be argued that this simple standard requires a more critical consideration than Ferguson ever suggests that it might need.