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Britain's Legacies in the Modern World
Public Affairs
February 2012
On Sale: February 17, 2012
488 pages ISBN: 1610391209 EAN: 9781610391207 Kindle: B006U5S5II Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction History
Kwasi Kwarteng is the child of parents whose lives were
shaped as subjects of the British Empire, first in their
native Ghana, then as British immigrants. He brings a unique
perspective and impeccable academic credentials to a
narrative history of the British Empire, one that avoids
sweeping judgmental condemnation and instead sees the Empire
for what it was: a series of local fiefdoms administered in
varying degrees of competence or brutality by a cast of
characters as outsized and eccentric as anything conjured by
Gilbert and Sullivan. The truth, as Kwarteng reveals, is that there was no such
thing as a model for imperial administration; instead,
appointees were schooled in quirky, independent-minded
individuality. As a result the Empire was the product not of
a grand idea but of often chaotic individual improvisation.
The idosyncracies of viceroys and soldier-diplomats who ran
the colonial enterprise continues to impact the world, from
Kashmir to Sudan, Baghdad to Hong Kong.
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