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Cargando... The Decline and Fall of the British Empire, 1781-1997 (2007)por Piers Brendon
  
Ninguno Actualmente no hay Conversaciones sobre este libro.  dcunning11235 | Aug 12, 2023 |    ) kaitanya64 | Jan 3, 2017 | Brenden explains how the empire was always fated to fail. He does this continuously. He tells its racism, its greed, its theft, its moralistic overlay that could never cover its actions. He damns it over and over and then pops up and says "but the British did" --and he lists some railroad or another. Perfect for a long long vacation read. ( ) kerns222 | Aug 24, 2016 |  ) jerry-book | Jan 26, 2016 |  )1  zen_923 | Dec 20, 2013 |
Piers Brendon's prodigious volume is a brilliant account of acts two, three and four in this swelling drama of imperial themes from Yorktown to Goose Green. Despite his title, he knows he is not Edward Gibbon and is the first to concede that Decline and Fall casts a long shadow. While he has resisted 'setting up as a rival' to the choleric county colonel and his rolling Augustan narrative of Roman decline, the awesome scale of a subject that includes Africa, the Far East and the Antipodes compels the faithful narrator into an enthralling mini-series of colonial adventure from Plessey to Omdurman, via the Zulu wars (Rorke's Drift) and Baden-Powell's defence of Mafeking.
After the American Revolution, the British Empire appeared doomed. But over the next 150 years it grew to become the greatest and most diverse empire the world has ever seen--from Canada to Australia to China, India, and Egypt--seven times larger than the Roman Empire at its apogee. Yet it was also fundamentally weak, as Piers Brendon shows in this panoramic chronicle. Run from a tiny island base, it operated on a shoestring with the help of local elites. It enshrined a belief in freedom that would fatally undermine its authority. Spread too thin, and facing wars, economic crises, and domestic discord, the empire would vanish almost as quickly as it appeared. Within a generation, it collapsed, sometimes amid bloodshed, leaving unfinished business in Rhodesia, the Falklands, and Hong Kong. Above all, it left a contested legacy: at best, a sporting spirit, a legal code, and a near-universal language; at worst, failed states and internecine strife.--From publisher description. No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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 Google Books — Cargando...GénerosSistema Decimal Melvil (DDC)909.0971241History and Geography History World history Other Geographic Classifications Socioeconomic Regions By Political Orientation British EmpireClasificación de la Biblioteca del CongresoValoraciónPromedio: (4)
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It's definitely one of those books written from the stance that there are no good guys in history. Well, people that do good, but... Eh.
Very interesting; while the US has never had the colonial reach of GB, there are definitely some parallels (some). In that thread, it is interesting to become aware of ones own thinking following earlier reflections re: The decline of Romam Empire --> The decline of the British Empire --> The decline of the US... Hegemony.
But dense! (