Empire (edit title)

Timothy Gray approved Ulrich’s request to change the title of Empire Saturday, October 31 2009.

Ulrich edited the series of Empire Monday, October 12 2009.

• Added this book in the series: Colossus and Empire (Primary series)

Ulrich changed the title of Empire Monday, October 12 2009.

Dave H edited the quotations of Empire Thursday, October 8 2009.

• Added a quotation: “In other words, the Empire was dismantled not because it had oppressed subject peoples for centuries, but because it took up arms for just a few years against far more oppressive regimes. It did the right thing, regardless of the cost. And that was why the ultimate, if reluctant, heir of Britain's global power was not one of the evil empires of the East, but Britain's most successful former colony.”

Shelfari edited the description of Empire Saturday, August 1 2009.

• "A splendid history.... If Americans want to be convinced of the benefits of empire, as well as apprised of its costs, they need merely pick up Ferguson's dazzling book." -- Weekly Standard The British Empire was the largest in all history: the nearest thing to world domination ever achieved. By the eve of World War II, around a quarter of the world's land surface was under some form of British rule. Yet for today's generation, the British Empire seems a Victorian irrelevance. The time is ripe for a reappraisal, and in Empire , Niall Ferguson boldly recasts the British Empire as one of the world's greatest modernizing forces. An important new work of synthesis and revision, Empire argues that the world we know today is in large measure the product of Britain's Age of Empire. The spread of capitalism, the communications revolution, the notion of humanitarianism, and the institutions of parliamentary democracy-all these can be traced back to the extraordinary expansion of Britain's economy, population, and culture from the seventeenth century until the mid-twentieth. On a vast and vividly colored canvas, Empire shows how the British Empire acted as midwife to modernity. Displaying the originality and rigor that have made him the brightest light among British historians, Ferguson shows that the story of the Empire is pregnant with lessons for today-in particular for the United States as it stands on the brink of a new era of imperial power, based once again on economic and military supremacy. A dazzling tour de force, Empire is a remarkable reappraisal of the prizes and pitfalls of global empire.

Shelfari edited the contributors of Empire Monday, July 27 2009.

• Added a contributor: Niall Ferguson: (Primary Author)

Shelfari edited the first sentence of Empire Thursday, July 16 2009.

• In December 1663 a Welshman called Henry Morgan sailed five hundred miles across the Caribbean to mount a spectacular raid on a Spanish outpost called Gran Grenada, to the north of Lago de Nicaragua.