Cry, the Beloved Empire

Empire: The British Imperial Experience from 1765 to the Present, by Denis Judd (Basic, 518 pp., $35)

SOME years ago Boodles gin ran an advertisement in various American periodicals which began, “Come now, admit it. You miss the British Empire.” I feel reasonably sure that the same pitch was never used in British periodicals, where such nostalgia, even in harmless commercial ploys, would be regarded as in poor taste. But the same line might well have proved successful in a lot of places besides the United States-Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, to be sure, but also various countries in South Asia and Africa, and even Portugal, Argentina, and Chile. The reason is quite simple. This country which dominated a large part of the earth’s surface for nearly two hundred years cannot have failed to leave an indelible mark on the Western (and non-Western) cultural imagination. Fifty years after Britain’s departure from India, another look at Britain’s imperial record would therefore seem in order.

MF

About the Author

Mark Falcoff

Mark Falcoff is an Adjunct Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

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Empire: The British Imperial Experience from 1765 to the Present, by Denis Judd (Basic, 518 pp., $35)

SOME years ago Boodles gin ran an advertisement in various American periodicals which began, “Come now, admit it. You miss the British Empire.” I feel reasonably sure that the same pitch was never used in British periodicals, where such nostalgia, even in harmless commercial ploys, would be regarded as in poor taste. But the same line might well have proved successful in a lot of places besides the United States-Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, to be sure, but also various countries in South Asia and Africa, and even Portugal, Argentina, and Chile. The reason is quite simple. This country which dominated a large part of the earth’s surface for nearly two hundred years cannot have failed to leave an indelible mark on the Western (and non-Western) cultural imagination. Fifty years after Britain’s departure from India, another look at Britain’s imperial record would therefore seem in order.