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 it also began to teeter. Parker has created an astonishing kaleidoscope of voices and places, juxtaposing colonial narratives with critics such as Orwell and Forster and stories of the colonised using newspaper articles, diaries, documents, novels, film and other sources.