This is a concise, fair and straightforward account of the
British Empire from its earliest beginnings to the present
day, with no underlying ideology. Well researched, well written and logically
presented Unfinished Empire tells the story, the basics of which we all think we
know but have very different views about, with a rare clarity and understanding.
And that understanding includes explaining just why views on empire differ so
widely, why they have changed over the years and why they now tend to be
antagonistic.
John Darwin gently disposes of myth after myth, his title chosen because he
sees the empire as always in the making, improvising, developing from a long
chain of mundane activities, reconciling differences and seeking compromises,
its end impossible to envisage or plan for adequately. He also sees the empire
as an expansion of Britain and British values set in a world that is the relic of
many empires, a world in which empire has been the norm rather than the
exception and in which the British were usually 'only one element in a much
larger equation', our imperial rivalries with continental neighbours correctly taken
into account. Just as he dispels many a popular myth, so Darwin also
introduces facts that can startle, for example that between 1815 and 1930 twice
as many people (19 million in all) emigrated from the British Isles than from any
other part of Europe.
In four hundred pages the approach has to be general, concerned primarily with
central policy rather than with issues related to specific territories, a reminder to
those of us for whom our district or province was naturally the centre of our
empire that we were always part of something very much bigger. Darwin's
analysis is always helpful, explaining why things happened as they did and why
some things are as they are. He refines the concept of the empire of settlement,
from its earliest days up to the creation of the Commonwealth, by distinguishing
between the nature of settlement in North America and Australasia and of that in
the West Indies and South and Central Africa. He likewise demonstrates the
differences between the first empire of rule in India and the later one in Africa
and elsewhere. That later one is, of course, 'our empire' and some OSPA
members will resent the description of it as a 'ragbag': bases and fortresses,
such as Malta and Aden, originally acquired as way stations for the East India Company, plantation colonies such as Ceylon and Malaya and what began as
maritime bridgeheads in West and East Africa. But set in the context both of the
old dominions and India and of the hugely influential informal empire in countries
such as Argentina, and of an expansion of Britain that Darwin reminds us was
much more the work of private entrepreneurs than of the Crown, it all makes
very good sense.
Darwin understands how things actually happen in real life. He is always aware
of the complexities, the uncertainties, the unintended consequences and the
influence of unexpected external events. His approach reminded me how easy
it was for us, when the central issue in our lives was the timetable to
independence in the territory in which we served, to forget that the dominant and
very frightening issue for our masters in Whitehall was the cold war. He is
enlightening on the Macmillan Macleod partnership that speeded up our
departure and on the influence that both Algeria and the Congo had on their
decision making, just as he understands the reason for indirect rule and the
effects it had.
Despite empire being so controversial a subject I was only once seriously
niggled. Darwin comments on the ease, in most territories, of the final transfer
of power, something in the best interests of both parties directly involved, as we
always recognised, but he then dismisses the final independence ceremonies as
'pleasing pantomime in which all could delight'. Pantomime it may have been to
foreign and uninvolved observers and to the media but never to those of us, on
both sides, who had played an active role in the achievement of those events
and in the course of which we had drawn so close, sharing both aspirations and
fears for the future. The emotion was genuine. No occasion in Britain has ever
moved me more.
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