The Rise and Fall of the British Empire by Patrick N. Allitt

The Rise and Fall of the British Empire by Patrick N. Allitt

It’s hard to study the world history of the past few centuries without encountering the British Empire which was so encompassing that the British could proudly proclaim that the sun never set upon it. This Great Courses series attempts to look at the empire in its totality, which it does by bouncing around the globe in different time periods and observing how different pieces of the empire were obtained, evolved, and eventually left again. So the study is interesting, but for me, I never felt like it was adequately pulled everything together. Rarely did I feel as if I was reading about one empire. Instead, we were always looking at various pieces of it.

 

I also would have liked to have had a longer exploration of the comparisons of the British Empire to others around the world—Russia/Soviet, China, Aztec, Rome, Carthage, the list goes on and on. I also would have enjoyed a much more thorough look at the impacts—positive and negative—the empire had on the regions it ruled and the globe. Allitt makes a stab at this, but I would have preferred much more detail. Finally, I would have liked substantially more detail on why the empire was viewed as necessary in Britain and how they held onto it (from a domestic/political perspective) for so long.

 

Overall, a good course that left me wanting much more on the topic.