Argues that the British/Chinese relationship has shaped the modern world. While Britain dominated in the age of the Opium Wars, the balance has now decisively shifted.
The 60 years following the Portuguese arrival in the Moluccas in 1511 saw an epic global struggle for the sources and distribution of this new geyser of wealth. Told with verve and authority... read more
This complex man exposed horrors in the Congo and Amazon, winning renown and a knighthood. But his support for Irish Independence led to his execution for high treason.
A many-layered memoir from the Pulitzer-winning author of The Sympathizer: the American dream, the Vietnam War, the life of the refugee, adoption, violence, identity.
He ruled an area of the Indian subcontinent greater than anyone until the British 2000 years later; famously he renounced war for Buddhism and promoted religious toleration throughout his mu... read more
Accompanies an exhibition at the RA about competing representations of empire, featuring fifty artists from Turner and Reynolds to Frank Bowling, Lubaina Himid and Kara Walker.
This rich historical analysis argues that the Enlightenment was a failure on its own terms. Terror, revolution, corruption, gross commercial excess and Empire prevailed instead of Reason.
Born in Kenya, the author was two when the Mau Mau uprising began. A powerful memoir of this very difficult period and the end of empire in Kenya.The author worked for many years for the BBC... read more
After the Armistice in 1918, the Allies' support for anyone contra-German mutated into anti-Bolshevik Intervention. Forces were deployed in Archangel, the Caucasus, the Far East and elsewher... read more
The story of the first contact between the Haida and other indigenous peoples of the Pacific North West with Europeans - and what came after. Told very powerfully in a graphic form that comb... read more
A teacher of photography on a New England campus remembers his West African childhood: Cole may be writing about himself here. The novel is a subtle, quiet exploration of memory, the passage... read more
The British empire observed through the lens of a single day: the 29th September 1923, when the Mandate for Palestine became law and the British empire reached its maximum extent, just as i... read more
From the perspective of the people who have worked and lived there since 1862, when it was a fishing village, rather than of the imperial powers who controlled it.
Somerset Maugham appears as one of two narrators in this atmospheric novel of love, truth, secrecy and betrayal in 1920s' colonial Penang. Eng's airy storytelling is a rare gift: he gives hi... read more