Very good on the reality

This destroyed the cosy narrative of the British empire and exposed the horrendous activities of the colonisers. A revelation.

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Should be required reading in British schools

Deep research, put together in a forensic case for the criminality of the British Empire. Quite why there are still people who defend the Empire is mystifying. The cruelty, the evil, and the belief in British exeptionalism leading to treating "subjects of the empire" (victims of colonialism) as inferior, are disgusting.
Some of the book is disturbing listening, as it details British abuse, so beware.
I marked the performance down for the many obvious glaring mispronunciations,

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Torn

An outstanding account of the darkest moments in the empires history. The epilogue however is rife with biases and assumptions of racism in modern British that are quiet easily countered with many alternative perceptions.

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1 person found this helpful

Well researched, not well read, quite a slog.

First of all, why is a book written by a woman narrated by a man? When men doninate academic fields, this seems like an effort to minimise womens' work further.

I found the narration grating and the tone a bit too American entertainment / presenter voice for the gravity of the topic.

But it is incredibly well researched and a much needed expose of the horrors of the Empire. As such it is not an easy read and I found I had to keep listening to other things for a while to break it up. It is very long but maybe that was necessary to provide a comprehensive critique. It was a hard slog, but worth it. I learned a lot and had my opinions on the Empire utterly vindicated. I have a much greater understanding of the Palestine-Israel conflict too.

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5 people found this helpful

Essential History

There are few history books that can be regarded as essential reading. This is one. Elkins shows how the British Empire, in case after case, colony after colony, built on laws of repression, methods of torture and dubious dissembling, to try to hold on to its crumbling edifice.

A note on the performance: it is excellent , but delivered in an American accent (the. author is, after all, a Harvard Professor). Would the book’s searing message have been even more powerful if delivered in an English RP style accent?

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A devastating indictment of the British Empire

Superbly written and researched. 31 hours of irrefutable evidence against anyone still proud of empire

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Amazing

I wrongly though I was w
Ell informed about the British e
Moire.An amazing piece of historical research.

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Slow burner but ultimately devastating

The British Empire was organised murder and theft for profit. This is not new. Nor is it unknown how key imperial figures (looking at you, Louis Mountbatten) were quite prepared to use one set of “natives” against another, setting up feuds that are still extant today - India and Pakistan, Kenya’s ethnic conflicts, Israel/Palestine, Cyprus. These particular examples are considered in some detail. The result of Caroline Elkins’ investigations are all the more damning because they’re not hyped up. The facts of what happened are allowed to speak for themselves. This is yet another book I’ve added to my “get it in physical form” list because there’s bits of it I’ll want to dip into again and again. Between this, Paddy Docherty’s excellent “Blood and Bronze” (a history of British exploitation of West Africa prior to formal empire and then transition to formal empire), Kojo Koram’s “Uncommon Wealth” and Mike Davis’ harrowing “Late Victorian Holocausts” (all the more valuable for its inclusion of Brazil, never formally a part of the empire, showing how economic domination was just as effective), modern scholarship has really begun to push back against the jingoistic rubbish of apologists for empire in the government (Gove and company) and their minions in academia (Ferguson et al). It needs as wide an audience as possible.

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14 people found this helpful

Excellent 👍

I loved learning about the UK'S dark past, thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it

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Factual but totally one-sided

A detailed, focussed and fact-based account of the worst violent crimes of Empire. Plus a timely caution against its glorification. However, the British Empire was more complex than depicted by Elkins. Though she put little of her personal opinion in the book, I wonder if she hates Britain, regardless of the many benefits it has brought the world.

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