Résumé: I wanted to read a book about the British empire and this is what I found. It was my first, so I have to say it was pretty good compared to the lack of competition. I found it to be a little bit hard to read because new names and dates come at you almost every sentence and they don't seem to go in a very cronological order. I think it could have been written better, but it does give you lots of information that is very interesting.
One thing I read that struck me was when he wrote that "a glancing blow against imperial ideology" was the book "Lord of the Flies", where schoolboys stranded on a tropical island do not act like Robinson Crusoe and hold on to their old standards(superiority and a sense of higher self))and master their enviroment, but regress to primitive savagery like South Sea Islanders on pg. 598. I question whether the South Sea Islanders were savage considering the willingness of the English and French to spread venereal disease to these peace loving people.
Another interesting sentence I read in this book was that Captain James Cook was dismayed that the Tahitians called venereal disease "Apa no Britannia' or 'Brit-tanne' (British Disease). You have to laugh at these things, but maybe the author should have credited European lifestyles which led to all these diseases also as a part of the success of the British Empire. How Europeans lived in squalid conditions and threw their refuse out windows onto streets and "invented" all kinds of plagues, diseases, and flues, which made it all the more easier to convert people to a more "Civilised" and "Christianised" way of life. You know, "Live like us, you won't get sick :-)"
Anyways, It was pretty good. I'm glad I read it but would not read it again because it's a pretty boring book. Not the subject matter mind you, just the way it was written. If your just starting to get in to history like me than read it. Otherwise, just skip it, copy his Bibliography, and read those books which I might do. Cheers!