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Britain's Empire: Resistance, Repression and Revolt
This revelatory new history punctures the still widely held belief that the British Empire was an enlightened and civilizing enterprise of great benefit to its subject peoples. Instead, Britain’s Empire reveals a history of systemic repression and almost continual violence, showing how British rule was imposed as a military operation and maintained as a military dictatorship. For colonized peoples, the experience was a horrific one—of slavery, famine, battle and extermination.
Yet, as Richard Gott illustrates, the empire’s oppressed peoples did not go gently into that good night. Wherever Britain tried to plant its flag, there was resistance. From Ireland to India, from the American colonies to Australia, Gott chronicles the backlash. He shows, too, how Britain provided a blueprint for the genocides of twentieth-century Europe, and argues that its past leaders must rank alongside the dictators of the twentieth century as the perpetrators of crimes against humanity on an infamous scale. In tracing this history of resistance, all but lost to modern memory, Richard Gott recovers these forgotten peoples and puts them where they deserve to at the heart of the story of Britain’s empire.
Yet, as Richard Gott illustrates, the empire’s oppressed peoples did not go gently into that good night. Wherever Britain tried to plant its flag, there was resistance. From Ireland to India, from the American colonies to Australia, Gott chronicles the backlash. He shows, too, how Britain provided a blueprint for the genocides of twentieth-century Europe, and argues that its past leaders must rank alongside the dictators of the twentieth century as the perpetrators of crimes against humanity on an infamous scale. In tracing this history of resistance, all but lost to modern memory, Richard Gott recovers these forgotten peoples and puts them where they deserve to at the heart of the story of Britain’s empire.
576 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
January 22, 2022
A few years ago, a Canadian parent posted a phot of a textbook his or her child was using in history class. The text said that First Nations moved to give the settlers space to live.
And hopefully if you are reading this review you know how untrue that text was being.
Part of the reason why that text book exists, in addition to the major one of white supremacy, is the idea that the British Empire existed because the British deserve it because those other nations that they took over, that they stole, did nothing to stop them. (This is too is tied to white supremacy).
Gott’s book chronicles the vast types of resistance to the British Empire. Most people are familiar with the American Revolution (Americans are taught that it is what makes us exceptional because we won over the British. Strange that we don’t think of Hati the same way, isn’t it?). Most are familiar with Ireland, some outside of Canada may be aware of the Canadian rebellions. But Gott focuses on other lesser than rebellion -slave rebellions, the resistance in what is today India, various parts of Africa as well as New Zealand and Australia.
It would be fair to say that at times the book reads as a list atrocities committed by the British and it is a good start to learning more about the various resistance to the expansion of the British.
And hopefully if you are reading this review you know how untrue that text was being.
Part of the reason why that text book exists, in addition to the major one of white supremacy, is the idea that the British Empire existed because the British deserve it because those other nations that they took over, that they stole, did nothing to stop them. (This is too is tied to white supremacy).
Gott’s book chronicles the vast types of resistance to the British Empire. Most people are familiar with the American Revolution (Americans are taught that it is what makes us exceptional because we won over the British. Strange that we don’t think of Hati the same way, isn’t it?). Most are familiar with Ireland, some outside of Canada may be aware of the Canadian rebellions. But Gott focuses on other lesser than rebellion -slave rebellions, the resistance in what is today India, various parts of Africa as well as New Zealand and Australia.
It would be fair to say that at times the book reads as a list atrocities committed by the British and it is a good start to learning more about the various resistance to the expansion of the British.
January 16, 2023
The British like to tell a story about their humanitarian empire, asserting how much better they/we were as imperialists and colonists than all the others. This view has become stronger as they/we struggle to find their/our post-Imperial place in the world, and in the wake of revisionist histories from below, those that put the colonised at the heart of their narratives, and as scholars whose view of empire looks back to the metropolitan world hear debates silenced by that orthodoxy of humanitarianism and recognise not only that Britain’s empire was based in its military might, and that that military found itself challenged by those already in the places Britain claimed, those who fought back and resisted.
Richard Gott’s impressive synthesis of that resistance spans the mid-18th century to the great Indian Rebellion (what we used to call the Mutiny) to cover about 100 years of Indigenous resistance, settler rebellion and demands for independence, and freedom struggles of the enslaved. Gott takes a global view, paying attention to the outposts of empire as well as its major sites, and in dealing with his material chronologically builds up a sense of global resistance and constant warfare. It is a compelling and powerful structure.
The opening section covers 1755-72, and includes Native American resistance, Caribbean slave rebellions, war in India and peasant struggles in Ireland. By the time we get to the brief 1830-138 period he takes us into more Caribbean slave rebellions, settler independence armed conflict in Canada, revolt in central India, Indigenous and settler revolts in South Africa, occupation and resistance in the Straits of Malacca, continuing revolts in Ireland, Indigenous resistance in Australia, and wars in West Africa, Burma and north east India. Some of these were major conflicts, some minor in themselves, but when taken as a whole this is a picture of an empire that is unstable, fractious, barely sustained and constantly under threat.
Crucially, Gott does not treat Britain’s imperial struggles in isolation. Throughout the century he deals with there is merely a brief lull between US independence in 1786 and the disruption flowing from the French revolution after 1793 when Britain went to war with Revolutionary France. He paints a picture of well-informed resistance to empire, not just in terms of those fighting empire, at times, opportunistically and intentionally timing their action to coincide with demands on Britain’s military elsewhere, but also at times the depiction of Britain’s enemies as potential liberators (as in the disastrous Xhosa millenarianism of the prophet Nongqawuse, where the war in Crimea informed her predictions and claims).
He also effectively draws in British political pressures, especially the impacts of Radical MPs in the mid-19th century whose work kept pressure on the worst excesses of empire, even as key military leaders moved around the world inflicting those excesses. Yet he also makes clear that empire propaganda was so powerful as to marginalise those voices by mid-century, including in the aftermath of the Indian Rebellion where intermittent massacres of British civilians were highlighted while news of rampaging soldiers inflicting thousands of non-combatant deaths in their wholesale destruction of Indian towns and cities was suppressed: it’s a telling case of truth as the first casualty of war.
Yet he doesn’t belabour some of these points; for instance he notes that the British ‘turned a blind eye’ to the continuing slave trade in the Indian Ocean into the 1820s despite having outlawed that trade in 1807: we’re left as readers to draw the conclusion of hypocrisy. That said, he also notes that slavery itself was only outlawed because of continuing slave revolts, and the massive compensation paid to former owners alongside the development of trade in indentured labour replacing the formerly enslaved who refused, understandably, to work for their former ‘owners’/oppressors.
There is some overlap with other synthetic discussions of the brutality of Britain’s empire, such as John Newsinger’s The Blood Never Dried which includes some major events of the early 19th century, but Gott’s view is global and comprehensive. It is also damning, a depiction of an empire acting in the interests of capital, based in violence and drives to genocide, and widespread murder of non-combatants. Recent apologists of empire often invoke a balance sheet approach, while attached to a residual view that other empires were worse – and there is little that can count as apologia for the Belgian terror in Congo, French military marauding across the Sahel, Spanish and Portuguese genocide in the Americas, or German genocide in Namibia. Gott shows that there the British empire wasn’t all that different – and in many ways the same. Invocations of the usefulness of railways and of ‘civilisation’ do little balance the brutality of Britain’s ambitions and practice.
The book was first published in 2011, and while there has been a growth in literature he could have called on there is little that challenges the direction of Gott’s narrative. Even so, some of his language demonstrates the power of empire. On occasion he slips back into Mutiny in India (which is not to deny that troops did mutiny, but his occasional use of a proper noun suggests the powerful effects of imperial ideologies). More problematic is his use of terms such as chieftain, which is part of that same discourse that undermines the integrity of Indigenous political structures – while at the same time building a case that shows the power of those societies. It’s a frustrating concession to imperial ideology and discourse in a text that powerfully challenges those discourses and ideologies.
The book comes with a comprehensive bibliography, but it would have been nice to have seen some of those key texts pulled out as recommended further reading; that might have enhanced the usefulness of this as an introductory text allowing a wider exploration of the brutality of empire. On top of that there’s a century of empire, resistance, repression and revolt from 1858 to the mid 1960s when Britain’s empire has reduced to a few outposts: as Newsinger, Caroline Elkins and others show, there is a similarly violent story to be told about Britain’s final imperial century: Gott’s real power in distinction to these writers is his global view and his attention to Indigenous and other colonial subaltern agency. The museum studies scholar Dan Hicks calls the latter half of the 19th century World War Zero; Gott’s case suggests that war was much, much longer.
This barely scratches the surface – and is all the more important for it. It’s engaging, readable and a fine place to start rethinking Britain’s imperial fantasies
Richard Gott’s impressive synthesis of that resistance spans the mid-18th century to the great Indian Rebellion (what we used to call the Mutiny) to cover about 100 years of Indigenous resistance, settler rebellion and demands for independence, and freedom struggles of the enslaved. Gott takes a global view, paying attention to the outposts of empire as well as its major sites, and in dealing with his material chronologically builds up a sense of global resistance and constant warfare. It is a compelling and powerful structure.
The opening section covers 1755-72, and includes Native American resistance, Caribbean slave rebellions, war in India and peasant struggles in Ireland. By the time we get to the brief 1830-138 period he takes us into more Caribbean slave rebellions, settler independence armed conflict in Canada, revolt in central India, Indigenous and settler revolts in South Africa, occupation and resistance in the Straits of Malacca, continuing revolts in Ireland, Indigenous resistance in Australia, and wars in West Africa, Burma and north east India. Some of these were major conflicts, some minor in themselves, but when taken as a whole this is a picture of an empire that is unstable, fractious, barely sustained and constantly under threat.
Crucially, Gott does not treat Britain’s imperial struggles in isolation. Throughout the century he deals with there is merely a brief lull between US independence in 1786 and the disruption flowing from the French revolution after 1793 when Britain went to war with Revolutionary France. He paints a picture of well-informed resistance to empire, not just in terms of those fighting empire, at times, opportunistically and intentionally timing their action to coincide with demands on Britain’s military elsewhere, but also at times the depiction of Britain’s enemies as potential liberators (as in the disastrous Xhosa millenarianism of the prophet Nongqawuse, where the war in Crimea informed her predictions and claims).
He also effectively draws in British political pressures, especially the impacts of Radical MPs in the mid-19th century whose work kept pressure on the worst excesses of empire, even as key military leaders moved around the world inflicting those excesses. Yet he also makes clear that empire propaganda was so powerful as to marginalise those voices by mid-century, including in the aftermath of the Indian Rebellion where intermittent massacres of British civilians were highlighted while news of rampaging soldiers inflicting thousands of non-combatant deaths in their wholesale destruction of Indian towns and cities was suppressed: it’s a telling case of truth as the first casualty of war.
Yet he doesn’t belabour some of these points; for instance he notes that the British ‘turned a blind eye’ to the continuing slave trade in the Indian Ocean into the 1820s despite having outlawed that trade in 1807: we’re left as readers to draw the conclusion of hypocrisy. That said, he also notes that slavery itself was only outlawed because of continuing slave revolts, and the massive compensation paid to former owners alongside the development of trade in indentured labour replacing the formerly enslaved who refused, understandably, to work for their former ‘owners’/oppressors.
There is some overlap with other synthetic discussions of the brutality of Britain’s empire, such as John Newsinger’s The Blood Never Dried which includes some major events of the early 19th century, but Gott’s view is global and comprehensive. It is also damning, a depiction of an empire acting in the interests of capital, based in violence and drives to genocide, and widespread murder of non-combatants. Recent apologists of empire often invoke a balance sheet approach, while attached to a residual view that other empires were worse – and there is little that can count as apologia for the Belgian terror in Congo, French military marauding across the Sahel, Spanish and Portuguese genocide in the Americas, or German genocide in Namibia. Gott shows that there the British empire wasn’t all that different – and in many ways the same. Invocations of the usefulness of railways and of ‘civilisation’ do little balance the brutality of Britain’s ambitions and practice.
The book was first published in 2011, and while there has been a growth in literature he could have called on there is little that challenges the direction of Gott’s narrative. Even so, some of his language demonstrates the power of empire. On occasion he slips back into Mutiny in India (which is not to deny that troops did mutiny, but his occasional use of a proper noun suggests the powerful effects of imperial ideologies). More problematic is his use of terms such as chieftain, which is part of that same discourse that undermines the integrity of Indigenous political structures – while at the same time building a case that shows the power of those societies. It’s a frustrating concession to imperial ideology and discourse in a text that powerfully challenges those discourses and ideologies.
The book comes with a comprehensive bibliography, but it would have been nice to have seen some of those key texts pulled out as recommended further reading; that might have enhanced the usefulness of this as an introductory text allowing a wider exploration of the brutality of empire. On top of that there’s a century of empire, resistance, repression and revolt from 1858 to the mid 1960s when Britain’s empire has reduced to a few outposts: as Newsinger, Caroline Elkins and others show, there is a similarly violent story to be told about Britain’s final imperial century: Gott’s real power in distinction to these writers is his global view and his attention to Indigenous and other colonial subaltern agency. The museum studies scholar Dan Hicks calls the latter half of the 19th century World War Zero; Gott’s case suggests that war was much, much longer.
This barely scratches the surface – and is all the more important for it. It’s engaging, readable and a fine place to start rethinking Britain’s imperial fantasies
August 27, 2020
This was a very interesting and informative book about the history of resistance to the British Empire. I learnt a lot, and the scope is very wide, as well as clear and easy to read. A couple of small quibbles, as it goes on it gets a bit bitty and episodic, with some sections feeling very brief and perfunctory....and also I was surprised that the narrative stopped after the Indian 'Mutiny'. I had expected it to continue until the end of empire and discuss the struggles around independence. So it felt a bit like the book ran out of steam, because the dare range wasn't that apparent from the title or cover. Still, I thought it was a very good and satisfying read!
October 28, 2024
Fantastisk och givetvis horribel bok om imperalismen och dess övergrepp. Avhumaniseringen!
April 24, 2025
[spelling corrected 2025]
The fact that the synopsis has to say '...(this) history punctures the still widely held belief that the British Empire was an enlightened and civilizing enterprise of great benefit to its subject peoples...' and that such beliefs still need to be punctured is staggering and in many ways beyond comprehension, except to acknowledge the wonderfully successful whitewash that has been spread over the story of empire. All those minor royals turning up in ostrich plumes and tiaras handing over constitutions to men who would tear them up within a few years, or even months, served their purpose well - but then the point of royalty is disinformation and distraction - but seriously this is an excellent book and if you suffer from a misconception of what the empire was for - spoiler alert it wasn't for the good of anyone but Britain - then you need to read this book. If it doesn't come as a shattering revelation that empire was for extracting the maximum economic benefit in the cheapest way it is still worth reading because we are learning more each year (what with the discovery of 'forgotten' documents and misplaced archives) about the reality of empire. Superb reading.
The fact that the synopsis has to say '...(this) history punctures the still widely held belief that the British Empire was an enlightened and civilizing enterprise of great benefit to its subject peoples...' and that such beliefs still need to be punctured is staggering and in many ways beyond comprehension, except to acknowledge the wonderfully successful whitewash that has been spread over the story of empire. All those minor royals turning up in ostrich plumes and tiaras handing over constitutions to men who would tear them up within a few years, or even months, served their purpose well - but then the point of royalty is disinformation and distraction - but seriously this is an excellent book and if you suffer from a misconception of what the empire was for - spoiler alert it wasn't for the good of anyone but Britain - then you need to read this book. If it doesn't come as a shattering revelation that empire was for extracting the maximum economic benefit in the cheapest way it is still worth reading because we are learning more each year (what with the discovery of 'forgotten' documents and misplaced archives) about the reality of empire. Superb reading.
August 6, 2016
I found this book to be extremely well written. I did not know that Seychelles was a penal colony or as Richard had termed them gulags and I had forgotten that Singapore was also used as a gulag. Nor did I realize that cannonading went on for as long as it did. I only wish that Richard has mentioned the other rebellions and resistance movements that went on further in the nineteenth century and the twentieth century. I look forward to reading Richard's other books.
April 18, 2014
So much for acquiring the empire in " fit of absence of mind"
February 24, 2022
I read this immediately after reading the new book on Smedley Butler and how his career was tied up in America’s empire. America wasn’t the first, as Gott painstakingly outlines.
This book was hard to read structurally. Each chapter is the gloss on some colonial expedition or another, and they’re fairly short but there are a lot of them. The basic form is something like “In 1832 a new expedition was raised led by John Quincy Shortbottom with a contingent of 500 men. Their initial attack was repelled, but a new expedition the next year overthrew the fort.” There’s five hundred pages of this. There’s a chapter titled “White settlers devise new ways to hunt the Australian aboriginals”. The book is relentless because the British were relentless. In the period covered, they spanned the globe.
A few thoughts:
Part of me wants to say that the British in their period were amoral, but if you compare how they treated white settler or convict colonies versus how they treated native peoples of color, you can see the immorality of the cruel racism driving them. They were repelled and driven out of the United States and Argentina, but they kept coming for the South African native people.
Part of what the book is missing is the “why” of this whole thing. There were great changes in England at the time. This is a great companion piece to “The Conditions of the Working Class in England” or “The Making of the English Working Class,” but Gott doesn’t really examine the material forces in the home islands that were driving the expeditions and expansion. Enclosures and capitalism led to a huge restructuring of society of people that needed to go somewhere, it didn’t matter if there were already people where they were being sent.
One thing I didn’t realize was how much the British leaned on native people to be part of their armies. They were able to leverage their forces by enlisting battalions of people from the area. In India, these Sepoy forces were a majority of the fighting force. On one hand it is gross that people would fight against their own peoples, but the same kinds of forces on the home islands were at play in India and South Africa – you need to eat and the realm of possibilities sometimes narrow.
The biggest weakness of the book is a lack of maps. Gott writes of historical subunits of the subcontinent and Australia and islands in the east and west indies and it would be nice to have graphical help to conceptualize these moves in forces.
This book was hard to read structurally. Each chapter is the gloss on some colonial expedition or another, and they’re fairly short but there are a lot of them. The basic form is something like “In 1832 a new expedition was raised led by John Quincy Shortbottom with a contingent of 500 men. Their initial attack was repelled, but a new expedition the next year overthrew the fort.” There’s five hundred pages of this. There’s a chapter titled “White settlers devise new ways to hunt the Australian aboriginals”. The book is relentless because the British were relentless. In the period covered, they spanned the globe.
A few thoughts:
Part of me wants to say that the British in their period were amoral, but if you compare how they treated white settler or convict colonies versus how they treated native peoples of color, you can see the immorality of the cruel racism driving them. They were repelled and driven out of the United States and Argentina, but they kept coming for the South African native people.
Part of what the book is missing is the “why” of this whole thing. There were great changes in England at the time. This is a great companion piece to “The Conditions of the Working Class in England” or “The Making of the English Working Class,” but Gott doesn’t really examine the material forces in the home islands that were driving the expeditions and expansion. Enclosures and capitalism led to a huge restructuring of society of people that needed to go somewhere, it didn’t matter if there were already people where they were being sent.
One thing I didn’t realize was how much the British leaned on native people to be part of their armies. They were able to leverage their forces by enlisting battalions of people from the area. In India, these Sepoy forces were a majority of the fighting force. On one hand it is gross that people would fight against their own peoples, but the same kinds of forces on the home islands were at play in India and South Africa – you need to eat and the realm of possibilities sometimes narrow.
The biggest weakness of the book is a lack of maps. Gott writes of historical subunits of the subcontinent and Australia and islands in the east and west indies and it would be nice to have graphical help to conceptualize these moves in forces.
May 19, 2022
This book takes on the important task of writing the history of the British Empire from the perspective of its rebels and resistors. This helps you see the Empire as less of a benign force, and instead as one that was contested and that imposed its rule brutally. You learn about the numerous rebels in India, such as Tipu Sultan (who gave the Empire numerous problems until his defeat). The Indian Mutiny receives a long and compelling chapter. It also covers rebellion from white settlers, who typically wanted to seize more land from the indigenous inhabitants. For instance it follows the American rebels in the War of Independence, and Dutch rebels in South Africa.
While it is readable, the sheer volume of events and characters make it a bit of a slog to get through at times. As a left wing introduction to the history of the British Empire, I preferred John Newsinger’s The Blood Never Dried. But overall a good read, if occasionally overwhelming.
While it is readable, the sheer volume of events and characters make it a bit of a slog to get through at times. As a left wing introduction to the history of the British Empire, I preferred John Newsinger’s The Blood Never Dried. But overall a good read, if occasionally overwhelming.
January 27, 2025
Each chapter of Britain's Empire recounts a different rebellion or revolt - India, Australia, Africa, the Caribbean, North America. There is not a continent on the planet untouched by Britain's greed for power and resources.
It makes for pretty grim reading, and produces a slight numbing effect after several hundred pages.
As an overview of the British Empire's exploits, this book is an excellent resource. However, it is just one part of the story. I would be interested in the social, political and economic aspects of Empire.
This, then, is a good introduction to the British Empire. Further reading is recommended.
It makes for pretty grim reading, and produces a slight numbing effect after several hundred pages.
As an overview of the British Empire's exploits, this book is an excellent resource. However, it is just one part of the story. I would be interested in the social, political and economic aspects of Empire.
This, then, is a good introduction to the British Empire. Further reading is recommended.
April 24, 2014
I really enjoyed this book. It is such an important topic, and the scope of this book - it's ability to show both the global nature of the empire and connections between indigenous peoples everywhere - was impressive. The book was weaker on details, however.
August 26, 2024
Did have some interesting bits but I think David Olusoga's Black and British gave me a lot on the eras covered here in a style I preferred. Did find the parts about Maori resistance quite interesting though. The Irish parts are also good but having lived in NI quite a while now, I've read more specific things. Perhaps it needed to be four separate books by geography as the flow might have helped better as well.
August 20, 2020
Imperial arrogance. The mindset of the military and many of the colonists of the British Empire was imperious, domineering and tyrannical. They imposed their will and eradicated those who dared rebel against them.
December 24, 2020
I like how the author spoke of each colony's fight for independence or from being colonized by the British in divisions and parts. Kudos to the author.
October 15, 2021
Well written and easy to read, even if the content is hard hitting. You can't read this and still believe the Empire was a force for good.
Want to read
March 15, 2014KOBOBOOKS
Reviewed at The Guardian
Reviewed at The Guardian
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews