National Archives rather vaguely claim that ‘the British empire reached its height in the 1920s and 1930s’, and other experts give different dates. Then there is the biggest argument of all: was the British empire good or bad? This ‘balance sheet’ view of history, with ‘colonial crimes’ such as the use of poison gas and the deaths of millions in famines being weighed against the supposed elimination of ‘native crimes’ such as sati, foot-binding, infanticide, slavery and cannibalism, is futile
