Heaven's Command: An Imperial Progress

The Pax Britannica Trilogy #1

by Jan Morris

The opening volume of Morris’s “Pax Britannica Trilogy,” this richly detailed work traces the rise of the British Empire, from the accession of Queen Victoria to the throne in 1837 to the celebration of her Diamond Jubilee in 1897. Index. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book

Genres: History, Nonfiction, British Literature, India, Audiobook, 19th Century, Travel

560 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Jan Morris was a British historian, author and travel writer. Morris was educated at Lancing College, West Sussex, and Christ Church, Oxford, but is Welsh by heritage and adoption. Before 1970 Morris published under her assigned birth name, "James ", and is known particularly for the Pax Britannica trilogy, a history of the British Empire, and for portraits of cities, notably Oxford, Venice, Trieste, Hong Kong, and New York City, and also wrote about Wales, Spanish history, and culture.

In 1949 Jan Morris married Elizabeth Tuckniss, the daughter of a tea planter. Morris and Tuckniss had five children together, including the poet and musician Twm Morys. One of their children died in infancy. As Morris documented in her memoir Conundrum, she began taking oestrogens to feminise her body in 1964. In 1972, she had sex reassignment surgery in Morocco. Sex reassignment surgeon Georges Burou did the surgery, since doctors in Britain refused to allow the procedure unless Morris and Tuckniss divorced, something Morris was not prepared to do at the time. They divorced later, but remained together and later got a civil union. On May, 14th, 2008, Morris and Tuckniss remarried each other. Morris lived mostly in Wales, where her parents were from.

Reviews

[Riku Sayuj · Rating 3 out of 5]

We don’t want to fight, but by jingo if we do,

We’ve got the ships, we’ve got the men, we’ve got the money too!

INNOCENTS ABROAD!

This is history told through a patchwork of breezy anecdotes — that might not even fit together well enough, but still achieves the objective remarkably well. The narrative flits in and out across the world, now Australia, now India, now Afghanistan, now Congo, and so on. The idea was probably to allow the reader to visualize through these series of picturizations the full magnificence that was the Empire.

More than the anecdotal nature, the selection of anecdotes themselves is curious. They are largely personal anecdotes, dealing with individuals. The historical narrative is stitched together from these short, quick personal sketches.

The Middle Path

While enormously interesting, this selection also betrays the by-default-note of imperialistic apology writ large over such an approach. It is hard to talk of individuals without touching the picture up with romanticism, especially when only eulogizing records exist, the crushed ones having not kept individual/personal records, especially when Morris searches out the medium-level players, not the Viceroys, Governor-Generals, Kings and Ministers — the on-the-ground players — who exist now only in British-written annals or diaries/letters and loom larger than life, as they had to.

This is a new method to the rhetoric of imperial defense, at least to this reviewer — the Imperial Progress across the world is shown from a middle view — the view of the decent men and women who participated in the everyday pushing along of the imperial cart.

But why focus on them?

Why leave out the two ends of the spectrum - the Imperial Station Masters and the common men among the imperial subjects?

Because this middle view is surprisingly conducive to showing a decent and forgivable view of the Imperial ‘Progress’ — a on-high view would expose the despotism, racism and blatant menace that accompanied the progress; while the bottom view would expose that the word ‘progress’ is way beyond an excusable misnaming of the imperial process.

I still do not give the book less than a middling star rating since the language is good, the prose is breezy, and it is a decent reading experience. It is extremely light reading and is a good parlor-table book, enjoyable and non-thought provoking.

It is hard to capture that spirit when tackling a momentous period. The author attempted and captured that brilliantly. She also manages to make me feel defensive and a complete prig for criticizing such a breezy and good-natured account.

That is the strength of the book and the danger. The author does starts with a frank admission of bias, adding to the breezy tally-ho approach, forcing any offended readers to forgive her and just enjoy the journey. I am sorry to report that it can easily work. I was caught off-guard many times, especially when it was the other countries that were the subject of discussion. Only when the focus shifted back to India was I able to detect the prejudices of the breezy account.



In fact, how Morris would treat the 1857 Revolt (not mutiny!) was something I looked forward to — I knew that would act as a touchstone to how I would judge the book’s biases. True to expectations, she shows the ‘mutiny’ as a bumbling no-show and the britishers as magnanimously outraged avengers. It is treated as a complete farce. That decided it for me and from then on my reading was much more alert to undertones.

I noticed how trivial details are lovingly dwelt on, to convey the full sense of a nostalgic lost world; while tragic events such as the burning of the Summer Palace in Beijing (an event that left such a psychological scar on Chinese history) are passed by with a single breezy sentence: ‘a well-placed blow to Tartar pride.'

What is most noticeable, however, is that the only subject people (empires enemies) who are given a semblance of humanity are the Boers and the Australian settlers — both European in origins, of course. The Irish is also given a more personalized picturization but there is a thread of hostility and reductionism detectable there too.

Sample a selection:

... when in 1897 good old Queen Victoria celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of her accession to the throne, the nation made it gaudily and joyously a celebration of Empire. Never had the people been more united in pride, and more champagne was imported that year than ever before in British history. What a century it had been for them all! How far the kingdom had come since that distant day when Emily Eden, hearing upon the Ganges bank of the young Queen’s accession, had thought it so charming an invention! What a marvellous drama it had offered the people, now tragic, now exuberant, now uplifting, always rich in colour, and pathos, and laughter, and the glow of patriotism! In 1897 Britain stood alone among the Powers, and to most Britons this isolated splendour was specifically the product of Empire. Empire was the fount of pride. Empire was the panacea. Empire was God’s gift to the British race, and dominion was their destiny.

Or, consider the excuses set forth in this little passage:

Not many people doubted the rightness of Empire. The British knew that theirs was not a wicked nation, as nations went, and if they were insensitive to the hypocrisies, deceits and brutalities of Empire, they believed genuinely in its civilizing mission. They had no doubt that British rule was best, especially for heathens or primitives, and they had faith in their own good intentions. In this heyday of their power they were behaving below their own best standards, but they remained as a whole a good-natured people.

Their chauvinism was not generally cruel. Their racialism was more ignorant than malicious. Their militarism was skin-deep. Their passion for imperial grandeur was to prove transient and superficial, and was more love of show than love of power. They had grown up in an era of unrivalled national success, and they were displaying the all too human conceit of achievement.

Sure. I buy that. Yeah.

It also has to be said that occasionally she does try to knowingly mock the empire to show detachment but inevitably slips back into a gloating romanticizing of the empire. The account on Irish history also helped me with my reading of Joyce - another positive for the book. Also, THERE IS AN INDEX!

A Non-Intellectual Defense

So in effect, it is a non-intellectual defense of Empire, deftly done by by providing personal accounts, by telling the reader — “but look, see how swell these guys were?” It is emotional manipulation. And quite effective — It is hard to feel anger towards most of the characters on which the book rides. I feel that is quite a psychologically powerful impression that the book can leave. Even more so for being true, most of these middle-level guys in probability really were swell guys. 

Niall Ferguson (Empire: How Britain Made The Modern World) should endeavor to learn from Jan Morris.


[ About the cartoon - As Japan apologizes to Korea, a group of people from other colonized nations wonders when their colonizers will issue a similar apology. ]




Even though cringe-inducingly triumphalistic throughout, this is good historical time-pass. It is recommended in that spirit. As long as the readers stay alert against taking an ideological impression away from the reading of the Empire as a good natured, well-intentioned beast that never knew that it was doing anything wrong and got up and left as soon as it realized.

The problem with all such defenses of Empire is that they are inevitably operating on the premise of a false dichotomy — that of being able to separate (or even prove the existence of) positive and negative sides to colonialism. Which is just the wrong way to look at subjugation and exploitation — it does NOT matter if positives were there. Mistakes were made, deal with it. Denialism will get us nowhere. Imperialism was not genial bumbling. Sorry.

“Every empire, however, tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate.”

~ Edward W. Said

[Lark Benobi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heaven's Command is 'History of the British Empire as Saucy Anecdote' and I loved it. I'm in the middle of a major downsizing in my house and it made the housework much more enjoyable to be listening along to this audiobook, which reads like an adventure story. There is a bit of theorizing in the opening pages about how Britain's will to rule the world began in earnest with abolitionist William Wilberforce, whose work to abolish the slave trade left all of Britain with a smug moral imperative, or excuse rather, to bring civilization and enlightenment to all people. It's an interesting idea, and it made me think about how the U.S. was left with a similar moral imperative, after playing the pivotal role in defeating evil in WWII, and after which it, too, appointed itself the world's civilizing force--but that's about it for any introspection in this book.

The rest was one rousing tale after another. The Southern Africa section zips along as dramatically as the 1964 movie 'Zulu' starring Michael Caine. The messy history of India and Empire begins with a long and almost romantic introduction to the Thuggee and their assassination methods. It's breezy, and maybe even a little bit of a guilty pleasure, but on the other hand I do know a lot more about the Voortrekkers than I did before, and about many other things, too, and it was delightful to find another Barbara-Tucker sort of storyteller that could make history come alive for me.

I especially recommend it for people who enjoyed J.G. Farrell's The Siege of Krishnapur--although Morris is writing history, and Farrell's book is fiction, both books have the same brash attitude.

[Tony · Rating 3 out of 5]

Heaven's Command chronicles the rise of the (2nd) British Empire in a novel manner. The bulk of the story is related through a series of vignettes, which are meant to come together--like the tiles of a mosaic--to form a picture of the empire's ascent.  As with any story collection, some are better than others. But, the overall quality is fairly high. 

Does an overall picture of the empire emerge?  Sort of.  One certainly gets a good sense of its scope and diversity.  However, I cannot say that I came away with any real understanding of how an empire on which the sun never set truly came into existence.

[Randall Wallace · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is about the British Empire during Queen Victoria’s 63-year reign (1819- 1901). Useful bits Jan put in this book: “in 1837 it still took three days to travel from London to Ireland.” It took three months to get to Bombay and eight months to Sydney. In those days, Malaria was “often” treated by bleeding. In Canada, you would travel by sledge, canoe or horseshoe. Brit textile manufacture takes off when England is the first out of the starting gate with steam. At the beginning of her reign, 100 million were “in the empire”. Administering this empire took 1,200,000 Brits living overseas, and 56,000 soldiers. Possession of a hill without artillery in battle back then meant nothing. The Tory Party was the diehard party of Empire. India had the Thugs who for hundreds of years strangled strangers on Indian roads to please the God Kali. Between November and May of 1812, the Thugs murdered 40,000 people. Young Thugs started as scouts, then grave digger, then “assistant murderer” (seriously), then a boy’s first murder was a “cause of rejoicing”. Strangely, Thuggee was a religious custom.

Jan quotes one guy calling the British empire an “accomplishment” on which “depends the happiness of the world.” Boswell thought it was robbery to stop human slavery and would deprive “African savages” of their “happier state of life.” Ruskin wrote of England, “She must ‘found’ colonies as fast and far as she is able.” At this time, one quarter of slaves were perishing during passage in the slave ships. In mid-19th century Sydney, Australia, “all sorts of animals were pitted against each other in gory combat, and dogs and goats mercilessly baited in the streets”. WTF alert: One visitor saw a “dog owner chop the back two legs off his animal to demonstrate it’s fighting spirit.” Sydney butchers “habitually skinned and plucked poultry while the creatures were still alive.” What perfect ads for the Australian Tourist Bureau.

“They (the Brits) were not meant to be loved: they were made to rule the world for its own good.” “At heart, by now, nearly every Briton considered as his organic inferior everyone who was not white – the less white, the more inferior. Even educated people seldom bothered to hide their racial prejudices.” The free settlers (of Tasmania) wanted land and ruthlessly drove the nomads from their seasonal hunting-grounds.” Tasmanians were then deemed the enemy (and the genocide was on). By 1850 there were 44 left, soon the last one’s skeleton was strung upright with wires and was the most popular exhibited displayed in the Tasmanian Museum. Liberal Gladstone also said, “my mission is to pacify Ireland”; he then suspended habeas corpus so he could imprison freedom fighters without trial. He okays the British invasion of Egypt. “The last great field for imperial expansion was Africa.” Jan sees Africa at the time as just fighting constantly amongst itself (p.518). At the Berlin Conference of 1884, Africa is divided up by the white powers; “at Berlin the powers agreed that Africans were not exactly people.” Hitler took notice of three major Brit reasons for its world supremacy: patriotism, racial segregation, and “masterful behavior in the colonies.” But Jan says, “their racialism was more ignorant than malicious.” “Not many people doubted the rightness of Empire.” “They had no doubt that British rule was best, especially for heathens and primitives.”

Jan’s Romantic Defense of Brit Empire (a.k.a. the civilized Brits never meant any harm): “The British did not wish to oppress the inhabitants, they just wanted no trouble.” Brits, after all, built roads (better to control Indians with) and gave them better justice (as long as the plaintiff wasn’t a Brit). Jan assures us, “In 1837 England seemed to need no empire.” She says, “the possession of an overseas empire seemed irrelevant to its wealth, dignity and interest.” “Still the British as a nation were not conscious expansionists.” “Considerations of prudence, of expense and of morality restrained the nation.” “Empire-building” was an “unpremeditated and often reluctant process.” “Imperialism certainly entailed expansion, but it was not bullying expansion. It was merely the extension of British institutions and wholesome influences, if necessary by force.” “The idea of Empire was becoming vulgarized.” “The very splendour of the empire was in itself an asset.” On page 536 Jan refers to the British national vocation as Empire during the Queen’s Jubilee.

“Britain had 14,000 slaves in the 18th century scattered in what Jan calls “gentlemen’s” houses. Jan doesn’t explain how such “gentle” men would get their slaves to work. Jan says originally the East India Company didn’t want to rule India but just wanted to make money there. One colonist said, “what have I done that her Majesty should banish me to this vile and abominable place?” Poor baby, maybe stop invading other countries? “The British had almost filled the available empty spaces of the world.” Terra Nullius, again, land conveniently empty until we showed up. On page 391: “the half-hearted empire of 1837 had doubled in population and tripled in area.” Oops… Sorry, just meant to get the tip wet. But Jan to her credit does admit the common British view was that Africa was a cruel “continent congenitally inferior” and “possessed no worthwhile values of its own.” Apparently drinking tea from fine porcelain with your little finger sticking out, does.

Jan’s Comical Endless Denigration of non-Brits: Jan on page 90 refers to the “decadent Chinese Empire”. She says the Afghan kingdom was making it’s living by “plunder and agriculture” and was “almost impossible to govern.” Afghan men evidently had “wide sleeves for the concealment of daggers or poison vials.” “Aborigines wandered drunken and dispossessed along the waterfront of Sydney.” Jan says Zulus fighters “slaughtered most of their neighbors.” Jan discusses India’s “hideous customs of widow-burning, infanticide, religious extortion” while along the Ganges, “night and day goats were sacrificed, their blood spilling down the temple steps.” She says the Boers didn’t agree with British “humanitarian imperialism”; they kept slaves and were bullies. Jan says the Maori “tribesmen frequently slaughtered one another and ate Europeans by the score.” Jan says Charles Darwin called New Zealanders “the very refuse of society.” Funny how in this book Jan has nothing appreciative to say about anyone who is not British. The perfect setup for “humanitarian” imperialism. Thus, Tasmanian women had “incipient moustaches” and when a Tasmanian died, the others “never mentioned him again.” Jan will tell you the Irish Famine was caused by a potato blight, but she explains that during the worst of the famine, Britain was intentionally and clearly exporting lots of food FROM Ireland because “it would be economically improper to interfere with the natural flow of commerce”. I guess it was more “proper” for the Irish to starve to death. Trevelyan also hated the Irish and didn’t object to the famine, and he referred to the “moral evil of the selfish, perverse, and turbulent character of the (Irish) people.”

Jan’s non-Brit Insult fest Continues: Jan says the Ashanti seemed a disconcerting people; murderous, queer, alarming, with their fearful orgies of sacrifice.” “The root of the Ashanti policy was a lust for power.” “The Ashanti national practice of human sacrifice was ruthless in its scope.” The Company sailed 7,000 miles per year in Canada loading up “with the skins of foxes, bears, martens, otters and above all beavers.” Jan adopts “terra nullius” in writing, “Canada in 1845 was almost empty.” Instead of troubling the reader with unsavory stories of what the Brits did to Canadian Natives, Jan gives you a story of a man in Canada who ate 3 ducks and 22 geese in one sitting. Brit snobbery in Greece: “The officers and their wives loved it, contemptuous though they generally were of the Greeks.” First we invade your ass, then we’ll happily talk smack about you and your culture. Jan’s inner racist comes out for this tidbit: “The (Indian Sepoy) Mutiny had demonstrated indeed that not all coloured peoples were capable of spiritual redemption.” Want more uncloaked Jan racism? “The mythical Timbuctoo had been reached at last, and had proved a dreary fraud.”

On page 318, Jan writes of New Zealand, “this was a Christian Empire” and later “Every aspect of Empire was an aspect of Christ”, while to most of us “Christian Empire” is an oxymoron. She sounds delusional when she writes, “Generals like Havelock and Nicholson slaughtered their enemies in the absolute certainty of a biblical mandate.” Then she writes “The administrators of Empire, and very often it’s conquerors were generally practicing Christians.” How so? By making others poorer? and using force to obtain their area’s wealth? – Like Christ would?  Jan continues with her inversion of Christianity with “guns were holy too” and “to abandon a gun was apostasy” – shades of Monty Python’s Holy Hand Grenade only Jan isn’t being satirical.

Jan calls “enemies” of Britain (countries that don’t enjoy being invaded by Britain) “horrible” or “terrible”. There is nothing in this book about the British poor, the Raj, Britain’s Opium Wars, or the taking of Burma. Those invaded are insulted by Jan – Fijians are cannibals, Indians are Thugs, Zulus have no honor, and the Irish suck. In this book you get endless stories of personal stories of upper-class Brits (“he was a blue-eyed, blond English gentleman” or “was all in all a very dashing fellow” or “How truly civilized, to see Mr. Fawcett hard at work in his elegant Great House among the buddleias”) instead mentioning the crimes of the British Empire. These are stories humanizing invaders and conquerors dwelling on all the good the Empire brought and few stories of the bad.

I was told by someone I really respect, that this was a great book I HAD to read – but instead of this somewhat nostalgic salute to British Empire under Victoria, read these following better books which paint a far more accurate picture. Barbed Wire Imperialism: British Empire of Camps (1876-1903), by Aidan Forth, Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire, by Caroline Elkins, Inglorious Empire, What the British Did in India, by Shashi Tharoor, The Trouble with Empire: Challenges to British Imperialism, by Antoinette Burton, The Chaos of Empire, by Jon Wilson, The Lion’s Share: British Imperialism 1850-2011, by Bernard Porter, The Last Man: A British Genocide in Tasmania, by Tom Lawson, Return of a King: Brits in Afghan 1839, by William Dalrymple, The Anarchy: East India Co Violence, by William Dalrymple, The British in India, by K.K. Aziz, Imperial Twilight (Opium War), by Stephen R. Platt, Paddy’s Lament (Ireland), by Thomas Gallagher, The Famine Plot (Ireland), by Tim Pat Coogan, The Scramble for Africa, by Thomas Pakenham, The Brutish Museum: history of Brit art thievery, by Dan Hicks, The Elgin Affair, by Theodore Vrettos, and Empire of Crime: Opium & Brit Empire, by Tim Newark. I read/reviewed Peter Ackroyd’s six-volume history of England but it’s just as ineffective an Empire critique as Jan’s (although I really liked Peter 1st volume “Foundation”). Why was Jan silent on Brit art theft, Burma, and the Opium Wars? Who knows, but the above listed books will amply instruct you.

[Melora · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was fantastic! Never dull, and the author made connections between historical personalities, movements, etc. that I hadn't seen before. I can hardly wait to get the next in the series!

[Ozymandias · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ripping Yarns
This is a somewhat difficult book to assess. It is a book started shortly after the collapse of the British Empire (here defined as the Suez Crisis of 1956) written with hindsight from the narrow perspective of an idealistic and relatively liberal English subject. While ambivalent in many ways, the essential decency of the British character is never questioned and broad stereotypes of national character and civilization are treated freely. The non-British subjects of the empire, if they are mentioned at all, are treated only insomuch as they interact with imperial officers, the sole major exceptions being those who (like the Afrikaners) are white. It is in short a book that views white British as the unspoken default and all others as outsiders, however sympathetic they may be if you meet them. She’s not pro-slavery, for example, and points out hypocrisies in the slave-owning classes, but at the same time she describes abolition as having devastating consequences. How can someone say that and not be pro-slavery? Because the goings on of black former slaves (while tragic) are simply outside her purview.

These shortcomings (and they are shortcomings) are more forgivable when you consider what the book is trying to be. It is quite explicit about this from the beginning: this is to be an attempt to capture the feel of the empire, the view it held of itself, by a former imperial subject who lived through its final years and witnessed its ultimate collapse. Given that this is the objective of the book it seems somewhat unfair (even though it is frustrating) to blame it for what it isn’t. The expanded memoirs of a white Englishwoman are naturally going to fail to capture the perspectives of a native subject. It lacks the perspective of time to let the dust settle, but it conveys the immediacy of it and captures some sense of the thrill and wonder that an imperialist would have felt. If you want to understand the imperial mentality this is the place to start. And she does a marvelous and nonjudgmental (I almost said unsentimental, but it’s the opposite of that) job of bringing the mentality to life.

The book sets out to capture what the empire felt like to those in charge and how they viewed the world that they controlled and justified it to themselves. On such a level it succeeds brilliantly, with a few caveats. Firstly of course, is the fact that revealing the ideals without peeking beneath to the behavior is bound to leave a very misleading impression both of empire and its servants. Secondly, the ideals played up here are strictly those of people with liberal sentiments who felt some need to justify what were ultimately pretty brazen acts of violence. People like this did exist, but they pass over the majority of imperialists who simply felt little need for justification beyond might makes right. In fairness, such people will naturally have little to contribute intellectually to the notion of empire (even though the imperial idealists spent most of their time seeking justification for what those people did rather than directing them) but this also ignores the darker ideals at play. She certainly mentions racism and the ideals of white supremacy that came to (as she sees it) tarnish the benefits of empire, but while this is mentioned it is treated in such a way as to make them seem foibles rather than common attitudes. There are problems with looking at things only through the imperial lens.

The sheer ambivalence of the book is one of its more interesting aspects. While not exactly an anti-imperialist, she recognizes the empire’s flaws and sees its downfall as an inevitable result of incompatible goals. The entire trilogy must be read to fully understand this view since she judges each era differently. As she sees it the ideals of the imperialists were essentially decent: to “civilize” the natives and bring them the benefits of modern knowledge. Opportunists existed of course, and even idealists often used their ideals to justify blatant opportunism, but the goal of bringing civilization to savages always lay there in the background. The early empire (which developed mainly by accident) was thus mostly good (this is part one, Sentiment of Empire: 1837-1850). Over time though, as the British started to drink their own Kool-Aid, the conviction that they had been given a divine mission to civilize the world started to corrupt their sense of mission (The Growing Conviction, 1850-1870). As they started to believe in their own hype they became more and more arrogant and detached from reality, turning into a more oppressive force than one acting for good (Imperial Obsession, 1870-1897). Subsequent volumes will deal with its collapse and fall. This is an oversimplification of course. The early period had plenty of opportunism and was frequently indifferent rather than simply well-intentioned. The positive imperial ideals are associated more with the period when things start to get more brazen.

This is not a scholarly book and makes no pretensions about that. Its goal is not analysis but feelings. Personalities are the main focus, followed by places and then events. Generalities and overarching frameworks is not this book’s strong suite. Each chapter is a vignette or series of vignettes about one corner of the empire organized according to date. That may sound hopelessly formulaic, but the basic approach is that of a storyteller. Rather than analyze each region the book tells a ripping good yarn about it and this, combined with a travel guide’s eye for local flavor, forms the core of the story. A grand tour around the empire led by someone who visited it firsthand. Instead of an overarching framework for explaining the empire, this book is about feelings and attitudes. How did the explorers see it? How did the bureaucrats and administrators? How about the colonists? Each vignette is chosen to be representative of one or another of these themes.

One good thing to come out of this is that Morris has an amazing eye for anecdotes and an outstanding command of revealing quotes. Cecil Rhodes’ description of his ambitions for empire as “philanthropy plus 5%” was my favorite. Her own voice is good humored and forgiving, with a tolerant fondness for folly and good intentions. She is eminently quotable. “Long before imperialism became a national cause, a popular enthusiasm or even an electoral issue, it occurred to some Britons that they might be a kind of master race”. Many of these quotes fall into the racial (or perhaps ethnic) essentialist ideas common during her era; the belief that there is an inherent national character that can be observed and described. Example: “Unlike the English and the Scots, the Irish had never been wanderers. They had no instinct for the exotic: perhaps they were exotic enough in themselves. They loved their country with a mystic attachment, and the free English-speaking communities scattered across the world, familiar though they were with Cockney or Glaswegian, seldom heard the brogue.” “Mystic” and “exotic”… somehow Englishmen are never described that way, no matter their weirder inclinations. “Eccentric” they’d be. Or “unusual”. It’s not cruel exactly, but it is dismissive and smug. The voice, to be honest, of empire. On some level I’m truly happy to see it so unadulterated, not hiding behind euphemisms or false pretenses. On the other hand… there’s a reason we tend to obscure such things now.

That was Heaven’s Command: equal parts brilliant and frustrating. There were times when I couldn’t put it down and others when I just wanted it to be over. The vignettes and stories from the empire were sometimes fun, but I did often find myself yearning for more analysis and fewer imperial eccentrics. Focusing on the British experience of their empire is fine, but the near total absence of any colonial voices is shocking (though perhaps it shouldn’t be). I’m a bit tired of race being used as the be all end all of every subject, but it’s impossible to ignore that (particularly by the Victorian Era) it formed the chief factor of and justification for imperialism in England. She can hardly be accused of ignoring this, but at the same time it is presented as an innocent and ignorant prejudice, free of the malice and cruelty that she sees as inherently, well, non-British. It’s what I’d expect from a Britain still enjoying the warm afterglow of imperial dreams. Our more cynical (I would say realistic) age might look on this and struggle to turn war crimes and murder into the careless excesses of cheerful good humor. She slaps the wrist gently where we might go for the throat. But that too is the voice of empire.

[Lewis Woolston · Rating 5 out of 5]

Possibly the best history book i've read in years. There are other, more complete, more thorough, more scholarly books on the British Empire but none that really give you the "feel" of thing the way Morris does.
This book paints a picture of the Empire anecdote by anecdote and really gets at what it felt like to be alive at the time. From Governors of small Caribbean islands to redcoat soldiers in Indian garrisons to missionaries in Africa the whole epic drama of the Empire comes to life in a really vivid way.
Highly recommended, i'm going to continue on to the second book in the trilogy now.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

As another reviewer writes, this reads like an adventure novel, and therein lies the problem for me. The book is well written and engaging, but the author's style is a bit florid which I found tiresome after several hundred pages. The author's approach is anecdotal: the evolution of the empire is revealed in a series of tales of significant events, 99% of which are military battles. So there is a lot left out. There is little discussion of trade and commerce, although making money was always the main impetus. Technology is given short shrift as well. The invention of the train and the steamboat are little discussed. The impact of the telegraph is not discussed at all, even though it surely had a major impact on communications in the empire. The bureaucracy needed to run the empire is not discussed either. The nearest he comes to that point is on the construction of a new building in London to administer the empire where the author discusses the architectural style of the building but makes no mention of what actually goes on in the building.

If I were asked to give a title to the book it would be 'The Schoolboy's Collection of Rollicking Good Tales of the British Empire'. That's the kind of book it is.

[John Purcell · Rating 5 out of 5]

The scope of this book is enormous. If you have an interest in the causes of the horrors of the 20th century then this book will answer many questions for you. It sets the 19th century Imperial scene perfectly.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book should be listed under 'Jan' Morris not James Morris, if you don't know why then I suggest you Google Jan Morris. Listing her work as that of man is transphobic in the extreme. Please note that Jan Morris even when she was called James Morris has nothing to do with the author James Morris described here.

This book, and its two companion volumes, is described by its author as an attempt to capture the feel of the British empire, the view it held of itself, written by a former imperial subject who lived through its final years and witnessed its ultimate collapse. Why that or its florid, and very readable prose, should excuse the grotesquely one-sided presentation of a historical period is hard to understand. What would we think of a history of Nazi Germany's empire building told as a history of the foibles and eccentricities of those madcap National Socialists! That funny little man with his silly mustache at the top of a pyramid of striving officials and soldiers! All those funny encounters between those cultured, educated German administrators attempting to create order in the vast, uncivilized reaches of their empire confronting recalcitrant Slavs, Poles, Ukrainians and who knows what others, those, 'new-caught sullen peoples, Half devil and half child', that German nation had sent out their best young men 'To serve your captives' need; To wait in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild' and what thanks do they get? None, all they receive and 'reap his old reward, The blame of those ye better, The hate of those ye guard' and after fighting 'The savage wars of peace' they find some Irish, Black, Indian, Pakistan, Pinko, Poufter, Leftie who, when 'your goal is nearest' come along and with 'Sloth and heathen Folly, Bring all your hopes to nought.'

That Britain, just as much as the Nazis, or other empire builder:

'ubi solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant' (created a desert and called it peace, a quote from Tacitus)

is what makes this compulsively readable book an offense because it is apologia for a system that ground a quarter of the world under the heels of some incredibly mediocre people. It was about power and millions not having it and a very, very few white Englishmen from a miniscule part of that nation's population having it. Of course there were a few women involved, there were Irish, Scottish and Welsh men who took part and behaved as abominably as their English counterparts, there were even men from poor and working class backgrounds enthusiastically taking part in the rapine and plunder; but the agenda was set and lead by that minority of over breed and unthinking products of England's upper middle and gentry classes.

I try to find a reason to excuse this, and the other volumes in the Pax Britannica trilogy, almost pathological racism. That Jan Morris was an outsider in many ways as well as a liberal, possibly free thinking, individual makes it worse, though is a salutary lesson on far attitudes have changed in the past half century, thank goodness. The Pax Britannica trilogy are only worth reading as a demonstration of the delusions the British had and the lies they told about their empire. It is unbelievable how long it took for people in the UK to actually grasp the reality of their country's deeds abroad and how resistant they were to referring to, or viewing, the 1857 rebellion as anything but 'the Indian or Sepoy mutiny'.

All those noble Englishmen intent on doing good, all those funny, childlike foreigners stopping them, is it really that excessive to draw comparisons with Nazi empire building?

I come from England's oldest colony (Ireland) and despite how much I regard the actions of England over many hundreds of years as baleful but I do not believe that the Irish Famine of 1845-1852 was a deliberate policy of genocide. It was the result of viewing Ireland through the lens of what mattered for England. For longer than half a millennium Ireland was dealt with as an adjunct of England. It mattered only in so far as it impinged on England. That is the story of all England's imperial possessions, particularly India. Britain didn't allow the 1943 Bengal famine to happen through hatred of Indians (though Churchill's rampant and openly expressed disdain for Indians does suggest, as far as he was concerned, their deaths was not something for him to lose sleep over) but because India only existed to make Britain great and powerful. Irish peoples opinions or desires, exactly like those of the people of India, just did not matter. The English rulers of Ireland, India and elsewhere thought they knew better what was good for ordinary Irish or Indian people then the Irish or Indians who claimed to be their leaders.

It is more than military repression, economic exploitation and cultural debasement that left a legacy in former colonies, a quarter of the world ended up with Stockholm syndrome.

Books like the Pax Britannica trilogy need to be banished to Trotsky's capacious dustbin of history. You should only be reading them if you have read at least a few of the following in part:

'Barbed Wire Imperialism: British Empire of Camps (1876-1903)' by Aidan Forth
'Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire' by Caroline Elkins
'Inglorious Empire, What the British Did in India, by Shashi Tharoor
'Return of a King: the Battle for Afghanistan' by William Dalrymple
'The Anarchy: the Relentless Rise of The East India Company' by William Dalrymple
'Imperial Twilight: the Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age' by Stephen R. Platt 'Paddy’s Lament: Ireland 1846-1847: Prelude to Hatred' by Thomas Gallagher
'The Scramble for Africa' by Thomas Pakenham

I could go on and on, there is a wealth of information available now that was undreamt of when Jan Morris wrote these books. Caroline Eakins has revealed, via long legal battles, has exposed how much of Britain's colonial history has been systematically suppressed, destroyed and hidden. This isn't about portraying Britain as bad it is about growing up and accepting that if for 500 years a quarter of the world was impoverished to make a few thousand Brits wealthy it is time to face up to that. If you one of the vast majority of British people whose ancestors never benefited from that wealth then perhaps it will make you look with a critical eye and those who did and their descendants who are still benefiting.

[Philip Chaffee · Rating 2 out of 5]

Beautiful, compulsive writing, but it’s hard ignore the stench of uncritical imperial nostalgia, underscored by racism and abundant essentialist talk of national characteristics.

[Pamela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heaven's Command: An Imperial Progress is the first volume of Jan Morris' trilogy on the British Empire. Oddly, to me at least, he begins his recounting of the Empire in 1837 thus ignoring the fact that England began collecting other countries through either invasion and conquest or chartered trade companies from the 12th century on. In this first volume, the New World is pretty much left out of it except for Canada, Bermuda and Jamaica and China is only mentioned twice, by name only: Hong Kong and the burning of the Summer Palace in quoting a General who thought it was a good insult. Actually, I guess you have to limit the story somehow and encompassing this first volume within Queen Victoria's reign is a good way to do it.

Within this volume are the outstanding names of British Imperialism: Benjamin Disraeli, William Gladstone, Charles "Chinese" Gordon, Henry Stanley and Dr. Livingston, Cecil Rhodes, Richard Burton, Charles Stewart Parnell, and even H.Rider Haggard. The list is unending. So are the famous events, the failures as well as the victories. Morris makes the argument that the British Empire in this period came into being and even expanded because of an evangelistic zeal that had developed among the populace by the time of Victoria's coronation. They were led by a desire to spread God's word among the less developed peoples of the world and bring the benefits of civilization. According to Morris, "...the British as a nation were not conscious expansionists. Power for power's sake had not yet seized the public imagination." Maybe so, but they didn't give up any piece of it and repeatedly fought to keep their "reluctant" empire. By the end of Victoria's reign, they had come full circle and were again gaining colonies by invasion and conquest and were granting charters to trade companies to operate as had the East India Company and the Hudson Bay Company - as pseudo-private countries.

This first volume is excellent history and I expect no less from the next two. Some of the argument offered to justify the acquiring of the empire and the actions against the local inhabitants was weak. Still, I don't expect to judge the past by views held in the present and many of the contemporary citizens had strong views against the idea of Empire building as well. Especially enjoyable was the poetry scattered throughout by the likes of Tennyson, Kipling, Milton, and a wide variety of English poets.

[Owen Hatherley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Important to know what you're going to get in this, the first of a three-volume history- as Morris puts it, this is the history of an empire by one of its centurions; and, it's pretty clear, a basically loyal one. So there is a lot on the somewhat opaque, ill-defined 'grandeur' of the imperial idea, in amongst a description of vast brutality, incomprehension and idiocy, exemplified best by a harrowing chapter on the Tasmanian genocide which ends by listing three or four quite nice imperial administrators as a contrast. But if you want to understand a bad thing, sometimes it's very much worth understanding how an intelligent, sensitive and humane writer could support it, and Morris is all these things here. At one point she compares late Victorian British imperialism to Stalin-era Soviet socialism, and that's more true than she realises: this book has the quality of a very slightly reformed Stalinist's history of the USSR. If you can stomach that - and the frequent racism, and the fact nearly no 'natives' have been consulted as sources - you'll find a great deal of interest here.

[Love · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first book in Morris wonderful trilogy on the British Empire. I read the books out of order, reading the first book last.

Morris tells the Empire's history through a series of anecdotes, masterfully capturing the feeling of empire while at the same time introducing the reader to some of the most important historical events taking place under British rule. Unlike the later books where Morris indulges her fascination with the quirkier aspects of the empire, here the focus is placed more strictly on places and event one would expect to be mentioned in a history on the subject.

If I have any compliant it would be the in my opinion excessive focus on architecture. I have little interest in the subject and find the written word an ill fitting medium for its depiction.

[Mk100 · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the all-time great reads. This first book of the triolgy takes us through the early years of Britain's colonial expansion and purported glory. It reads like a great adventure novel.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jan Morris is fast becoming one of my favorite authors. Her prose is so charming that I've found myself frequently texting short passages of this book to one friend or another, depending on subject matter.

Morris looks at the attitude of empire, and it's development across Queen Victoria's reign from ascension of the throne to Diamond Jubilee, and it's a fascinating perspective. The events, anecdotes, and personalities she introduces the reader to all tend towards tying together an overall sense of the evolving attitude to empire held by the British, the politicians, the ruling class, and people.

If I have one quibble it's that, while frequently acknowledging the hypocrisy, cruelty, and moral blindspots of empire, she also has areas where she is overly charmed by some of the worst offenders. She does acknowledge this though, which takes away some of the sting.

Morris also powerfully conveys the corrupting influence of power, and in particular, how fear of the loss of power can lead people to commit horribly dehumanizing actions.

[Al Berry · Rating 4 out of 5]

A survey book; glimpsing into different aspects of Britain’s Imperial acquisitions and retentions during the Victorian era, It’s an overview book to get you Interested in a topic you might want to dive down deeper on.

I did this as an audio book and the narrator was quite good, doing accents when reading quotes... French Canadian, Australian, White/black South African, Irish, etc... was a well done job that helped immersion.

[Olya · Rating 2 out of 5]

Upon attempting to peruse this literary oeuvre, I found the author to be boorishly condescending to all who were not of the English one thousand.

[James Carroll · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of its time but full of ripping stories exquisitely told, and rarely praises the imperial progress without questioning its overarching morality. Comes to the fascinating conclusion that public opinion predominantly shifted the empire from evangelical busybodies to cruel merchants. Look forward to the next one.

[Pamela · Rating 4 out of 5]

First, I must mention that I rarely listen to audiobooks as I find my attention wanders too easily. However, I had no such problem with this book, as the content was fascinating and well structured and the narration was excellent.

This is the first volume of a trilogy about the British Empire, and deals with events at a high level from Victoria's accession in 1837 to her diamond jubilee in 1897. It is not a strictly chronological history, but more a collection of historical anecdotes that give an impression of the ideas and themes of Empire. The reader is taken from Canada to Australia to India and all the corners of the globe, and meets a wide range of characters - some well known such as Parnell, Gordon, Livingstone and Rhodes, along with soldiers, administrators and explorers whose names are now forgotten.

This is a very engaging account, supported by witty and perceptive footnotes packed with interesting detail. The book was originally published in 1968, and views of the ethics and legacy of Empire have evolved considerably since then. Therefore many readers may want to challenge some of the interpretations of motivations and outcomes that are put forward here, and I would suggest that this is valid. Nevertheless, it is still a readable, well-researched and knowledgeable account of a significant historical phenomenon and I will be reading the other volumes in the trilogy.

[Jerry-Book · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the witty story of the Victorian Empire from Victoria’s accession to the throne in 1837 to her Diamond Jubilee in 1897. In character studies and in descriptive passages, James Morris (later Jan Morris) traces the course of Empire. The scope is vast and many details are provided. One example is Gladstone’s role as High Commissioner of Cyprus. Another is Richard Burton’s search for the source of the Nile. There is Edward John Eyre, the first White Man to explore the Australian Blight. Another important event was the Sepoy Mutiny in India in 1857-1859. The incredible detail the author provides can only have been provided by complete mastery of the primary sources. There is plenty of color and no juicy detail is left out.

[Michael Cuthbertson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Skip

Cannot agree with the praise this book has been heaped with. Whilst I see numerous reviews mentioning that its British Romanticism is fuelled by its time and place of when the book was published I don't think it can be accepted to have that overlook the enormous historical chasms Jan Morris simply chooses to ignore or hand wave.

Rather than take an appropriate overview (the word I'd like to use is 'historical') assessment Morris instead chose to wrap themself in brazen schmaltzy travelogue of historical anecdotes and often deliberately obfuscates or simply ignores swathes of history that don't align with this mawkishness.

Take for example the section on the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Atrocities on both sides were largely known by the historiography of 1973. It was not a clean war by any means and numerous white and Indian violent unjustified reprisals make for difficult reading for any historian looking for a lens to justify said actions. Morris does not necessarily shy away from that - but in the calibre of quantity on the topic - consider the decisions taken in how it wants to shine it's light. Almost 40 straight pages are dedicated to the initial uprising, with particular focus taken to highlight the massacre of 120 British women and children at the siege of Cawnpore. It's a well written and dramatically staged passage. But then when we get to the reprisals post the siege of Delhi upon the return of British order we get a very basic play by play of almost hand wringing - going into a flowery choice of picking out eye witnesses stating how 'shocked' they were at the reprisals committed by their fellow British soldiers. This was a reprisal which even in 1973 has rough conservative estimates of almost 100,000 being killed (the number now stands at around that figure at a minimum with most historians estimating up to 800,000 Indian deaths, with the most dramatic estimates holding it at 10 million dead). Before even 10 pages weve jumped into an entire play by play of the discovery of the Nile expedition. From the potato famines to the Boer War this issue crops up time and time and TIME again. Resulting in the book becoming nothing much more in my opinion than a shocking unjustifiable sequence of decisions for a historian to take.

Morris chose her topics carefully and with enormous bias. So the only way I could justify that the book holds historical value would be to consider it similar to how one could watch a film like The Battleship Potemkin or Birth of A Nation - considering it an insight into our historical writers controversial ignorance and accepting that they were not trying to be racist - but lived in racist times. I cannot agree that outside of that this book retains worthwhile value and I will not be continuing the series.

[Jess McMurray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply incredible. Who knew history could be this interesting? Who knew that descriptions of battles could still communicate military detail without endless repetition? Who knew dates and names could be rattled off regularly without making me yawn?

I was skeptical when it was gifted to me, assuming it was a laborious academic tome. Whilst it's by no means short on fact and detail, it's far more hybrid in nature - just as compellingly entertaining and engaging as it is interesting and informative.

The writing is just beautiful; elegant, paced and sumptuous without being over-bearing. Centrally, it's evocative - and that's really one of the most clever things about the book. It at once completely evokes the spirit of the Empire; the excitement and energy of a country that day-by-day was making leaps of discovery and progress. But at the same time it adopts a tone that is understatedly contemptuous of the motivations and methods that were employed.

Its condemnation of the concept of Empire is inherent but not aggressive, often delivered with a gentle irony; letting many of the atrocities speak for themselves, and giving a healthy sense of fulness to the peoples that were inevitably steam rollered. It gives good (though uncontested - though like I said, it's not an academic work per se) explanation of how many of the ideas of empire came to be; the charisma of key stakeholders and an attitude of benevolence and calling that only latterly devolved into greed and power.

I am, ultimately, shocked that history is this interesting, and shocked that it can be written as such, to such a degree.

I'm almost tempted to dock a point though - simply because of the frustration - and envy - this book caused. To hold such expertise and knowledge and write so well as Jan (as well as climbing Everest and being involved in pioneering gender surgery), when I won't be able to remember the name of a single historical figure or the date of a battle even one week from now is very, very humbling.

[Christopher Saunders · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jan Morris's Pax Britannica trilogy kicked off with the same-titled book, focusing on the British Empire at its apogee in 1897. Heaven's Command assesses the first 60 years of Queen Victoria's reign, as the Empire slowly, hesitantly grew to the world's dominant superpower. Morris's books are prodigies of popular historical writing: her prose is limpid, driving and insightful, with skillful portraits of important political and military figures, from rivals Gladstone and Disraeli to generals Garnet Wolseley and Robert Napier, explorers Richard Burton and John Henning Speke, Irish nationalist Charles Parnell and doomed Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah. Even readers familiar with this period will relish her colorful narratives of key events, ranging from military debacles (the disastrous retreat from Kabul and the fall of Khartoum) to triumphs (victories at Rorke's Drift and the suppression of the Indian Mutiny) to disasters and atrocities (the Irish potato famine and extermination of Tasmania's population), all vividly rendered, alongside less-familiar events like Canada's Red River Rebellion and the haphazard colonization of Ionia in the Aegean. Morris can be faulted for her overly romanticized view of her subject: she dutifully details the Empire's crimes and shortcomings, and regularly grants sympathy towards its often-unwilling subjects (noting that the complex society of the Ashanti in the Gold Coast, or India's rich and ancient civilization, hardly demanded "civilization" by Europeans), but also insists that most imperialists had good motives at heart. Whenver possible, she stresses pageantry and moral triumphs like suppression of the slave trade over crimes and atrocities. Read with a critical eye, Morris's work still affords a colorful narrative of the Victorian Age that's rarely been bettered, for sheer scope and readability.

[Randy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read and loved Jan Morris’s three volume popular history of the British Empire when it came out several years ago. I just finished listening to volume one “Heaven’s Command: An Imperial Progress” and it was just a good as I remember it. From a history reading POV it is really hard to beat the nineteen century for interest and personality. Britain was at its zenith having defeated the great Napoleon at Waterloo and Victoria’s empire reached round the world. Morris hits the high points of the Brits in India, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, South Africa, Canada and other beachheads. This is not a definitive history but an interesting overview which captures the stories and main characters who defined the golden age of the British Empire. It is hard to imagine that such a small country could spread its influence and language to so many places. I’ve long been fascinated by the story of the British in India and this is a great introduction. How could so few people control so many? “Heaven’s Command” whetted my appetite for volumes two and three. But before that, I’m going to dive into David Gilmour’s “The British in India: A Social History of the Raj.” I want to know more about the people who made the long voyage to work for the East India Company, to fight in the colonial army, to help administer the country or build railroads, or to find a husband.

[Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I liked most about this book was the author’s ability to express and explain history in a way that reads more like a story with characters than a textbook. Morris’s writing style makes the content easier to digest, enjoy and understand. With that said, this retelling is not entirely free of the author’s personal biases and assumptions. I felt that was worth mentioning.

One element I particularly appreciated was the author’s use of footnotes. They are utilized to share a significant amount of additional information that ranges from humor and irony to the current status of historical sites and buildings. In a few cases the footnotes were more interesting to me than the historical person or event they referenced.

My favorite parts of this book were the sections about the English explorers in Africa (like David Livingstone.). Having spent time myself in 5 different African countries, it was very interesting to compare this author’s historical account of the lives of these explorers/missionaries to what I learned from African people while I was in their countries. The accounts were almost identical in terms of facts, but the POV was certainly different.

Overall I found this book worthwhile and interesting. I would read more from this author.

[Mark Miano · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been a huge Jan Morris fan for decades, ever since I read her spectacular book on Venice - aptly named... "Venice." Even so, I was worried about whether I'd like "Heaven's Command," the first book in the Pax Brittania trilogy, because it is very long and, let's face it, attitudes about the British empire (in particular) and colonialism (in general) aren't viewed the same way they were in the 1960s and 1970s when Morris wrote the books. Still, I enjoyed this first book very much. It was interesting to bounce from country to country and continent to continent, learning about stuff that I'd either never heard of (the Thugs of India) or didn't know much about ("Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"). While Morris celebrates several aspects of the British empire under Queen Victoria, I think she does a fair job of highlighting the abuses and outrages that colonialism wrought upon indigenous people around the world. The narrator of this audiobook was fantastic, too; I find Naxos narrators to always be top notch. I don't know when I'll turn to the second volume, but I intend to keep going with this trilogy.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a history major who’s spent a fair amount of my reading life circling around the British Empire, I thought I had a decent grasp of the story. But Heaven’s Command reminded me how much I’d been skimming the surface. Morris dives in with a kind of meticulously chaotic brilliance—zooming in on the niche, strange, sometimes ridiculous lives of the people who built the empire not from strategy or grand vision, but from a heady mix of hubris, innocence, zeal, and more than a little backbiting.

This isn’t a triumphant narrative, nor is it a takedown. Morris holds the frame steady, giving the context of the time without reaching for easy moralizing or celebration. Her prose is dense, layered, and relentlessly detailed—so much so that it took me over a year to finish. But that density pays off. What emerges is a portrait of empire not as a machine or a destiny, but as a confused, stumbling human endeavor, stitched together by ambition and accident.

If you’re interested in the empire as it really unfolded—in all its absurdity and tragedy—this book will reward your patience. Just don’t expect to sprint through it.

[Melissa Muirhead · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a hard book for me to review. On one hand I learnt a lot about the history of British colonialism (and all of its horrors). I don’t think anyone could read the section about the genocide of the Tasmanian aboriginal people and not be affected. On the other hand some of the language and description of (non-white) people is dated and almost racist. It is also a history of men. I think if you were to measure the percentage of women’s stories and experiences compared to men in this book you’d be lucky to get to 1%. Overall I learnt a lot about the history and gained a much wider view of how this focus on empire came to be. Much of this horrified me and demonstrated clearly how horrific this colonialist mentality was and how these people really thought the (non-white) world was theirs for the taking.

[Nene La Beet · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started this, the first of a three volume series about British Imperialism, after having read a fantastic interview with its amazing author, Ms Morris. But I gave up after about 50 pages because there was so much about the British Imperial history I didn't know. But after a month or so I started again – not entirely sure why. And almost instantly I was captured and now have an appetite for the next two in the trilogy. I expect I'll like no. 2 even more than I liked this one.

The history of British Imperialism isn't very pretty although motives at some points in time and for some of the involved were honorable. Jan Morris tries to be fair and it is my impression that she succeeds.

So, if you start this, have patience, it picks up pace.