Holiday reading: Empire II
Niall Ferguson is an English economist, historian and writer who has blazed a trail of glory from Oxford to New York University and now to Harvard. His latest book, Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power, is a capacious history of how the British came to rule the world.
Superbly illustrated, Empire is a showcase for the author's way with words — the "Toryentalism" of Lord Curzon — and his gift for storytelling. Ferguson makes clear in his introduction that he believes the British Empire facilitated the spread of liberal capitalism and was the architect of progressive thought around the globe for much of the 19th and 20th centuries. Indeed, so enlightened was the British Empire's effect on history that Ferguson suggests we'd do well to find ourselves another "good" empire to maintain values and order in this unruly world. In other words, the British Empire should serve as a model for the new imperial America.
The concept of empire is uncool in these PC days, but it cannot be denied that the British Empire laid down the infrastructure upon which the modern world runs. The fact that one in seven of the world's population speaks English is proof of that. It takes a brave man to argue that empire is good, but Niall Ferguson ably and admirably makes the case.
Note: The Rainy Day team is travelling. However, Movable Type has been primed and the Rainy Day sister in Limerick has been appointed to the position of blog producer. This combination of nepotism and world-class nano-publishing system will ensure that the site is updated regularly.
Diarist of the day: Fanny Kemble, 14 September 1832[New York] "The women here, like those of most warm climates, ripen very early and decay proportionally soon. They are generally speaking, pretty, with good complexions, and an air of freshness, but this I am told is very evanescent. Whereas in England a woman is in the full bloom of health and beauty from twenty to five and thirty, here they scarcely reach the first period without being faded and looking old."
