Nigel Inkster
(Director of Transnational Threats and Political Risk, International Institute of Strategic Studies,
and former senior intelligence official)
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Richard Gott's
Britain's Empire: Resistance, Repression and Revolt is a work of unabashed
revisionism whose central thesis is that the establishment of Britain's empire over
two hundred years consisted of unremitting violence and repression and lacked
any redeeming qualities. In one sense Gott is right in that the history of the British
Empire is a clash between two worlds; one traditional and one characterised by
industrial and scientific innovation and the values of the Enlightenment. And
human nature being what it is, that clash was bound to go badly. But to suggest,
as Gott does, that Britain's imperial evolution was a precursor to the genocidal
conflicts affecting Europe in the Twentieth Century is arrant nonsense. Nor does
Gott give Britain any credit for contributions such as the suppression of slavery or
the policing of the global commons, in particular the sea lanes of communication,
which have been so critical to modern economic development. Indeed Gott
characterises Britain's efforts to suppress piracy in South-east Asia as a "reign
of terror" on the basis that British naval technology was manifestly superior to
that of the Malay pirates against whom it was deployed; by that criterion, almost
every military conflict in human history could be so characterised. Gott's visceral
anti-imperialism greatly detracts from a book which in fact contains much useful
detail about many small wars and engagements which Britain did fight But those
vulnerable to high blood pressure are probably better advised not to read it.
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Author
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Richard Gott
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Published
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2011
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Pages
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576
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Publisher
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Verso Books
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ISBN
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978 1 84885 833 6
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Availability
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Abebooks
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