Of the one-volume general surveys of the history of the modern British Empire currently available, Piers Brendon's is the best. While the bibliography includes an impressive array of archival materials, the book is chiefly the product of extensive reading in published sources rather than original research—though in this case the sheer scale of the topic dictated such an approach. Brendon has, however, read intelligently and well. The argument of his work is summed up in the Gibbonian title: even during the era of Britain's imperial expansion, the Empire contained the seeds of its own destruction. The battle of Yorktown, with which Brendon commences his analysis, constituted “the first successful rebellion of colonial subjects against sovereign power in modern history” (4). It was not to be the only one. Over the following two centuries there would be many Yorktowns, some more humiliating than others, even as vast new territories were being added to those already under British control. The Empire was fated to bear out the truth of Gibbon's maxim, quoted more than once in this book, that “there is nothing more adverse to nature and reason than to hold in obedience remote countries and foreign nations, in opposition to their inclination and interest” (quoted on 218). This was especially so in light of Britain's self-professed mission to hold its overseas possessions in trust for their indigenous inhabitants, which aroused expectations that could only be fulfilled by the eventual dissolution of the Empire.

Brendon, of course, is hardly the first author to emphasize the contradictory nature of the claim that British power was exercised in, and normally against, the colonies for the purpose of serving their peoples’ best interests. But his exposition of the way in which successive generations of British leaders attempted to square this circle, notwithstanding the realization by many of them of the impossibility of the task, is admirably lucid, informed, and persuasive. Three aspects of his approach deserve special praise. He is almost alone among British historians in recognizing the importance of Ireland in any account of the Empire's dissolution, revealed not merely by the host of imitators of Irish nationalist movements that sprang up as far afield as Burma but also in British policy makers’ growing recognition that methods that had failed to maintain Britain's oldest colony in subjection were unlikely to succeed in those more recently acquired. In contrast to the small crop of wistful panegyrics to the “Anglosphere” that have recently appeared in print, Brendon confronts unflinchingly the massive scale of state-sponsored violence involved in the acquisition and retention of so large an empire. And although he is careful to avoid facile comparisons between the past and the present, his work constantly reminds the reader that the impulse behind empire building is the product neither of a discrete historical period nor of the monopoly of the West alone. He soberly concludes: “The spirit of imperialism is not dead: it haunts the modern world and its manifestations are legion” (662).

This is not a flawless work, and it is arguable that its great readability is achieved to some degree at its subjects’ expense. Its author's affinity for the epigrammatic style, drawing heavily upon the wittiest and most barbed contemporary descriptions of the empire builders and with a distinct bias toward the outré, sometimes results in pen-pictures of one or two sentences that come very close to caricature. (The same tendency can be observed in the index, in which, to take but one example, the first entry beneath the name of Winston Churchill reads: “inability to grow moustache” [765]). Occasionally, Brendon's insistence on the “demoralising” effects of British rule is taken to extremes. His observation, for example, that the imperial overlords’ prohibition of cannibalism among the Maoris of New Zealand “undermined their way of life” and “produced protein deficiency in their diet” (91) seems to ignore the possibility that those about to be eaten might have found the traditional practice more demoralizing still. Finally, while each chapter provides an admirably concise overview of the subject in question, little in the way of authorial analysis beyond the overworked Gibbonian theme ties them together.

It is, however, hard to think of a more engaging introduction to the subject for either the general reader or undergraduates. The book will probably, and deservedly, become a mainstay of collegiate reading lists in modern British and imperial history. But its chief value will surely lie in its ability to arouse curiosity about the hundreds of fascinating topics upon which Brendon touches en passant and, it may be, in due course, to generate reinterpretations as stimulating and argumentative as his own.