Empireland: How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain

by Sathnam Sanghera

Nevertheless, it is also relentlessly fascinating. Did you know that when the British empire was at its territorial peak in the early 1920s, it covered 13.71 million square miles, which represents 24 per cent of the earth’s land area or equivalent to 94 per cent of the moon’s surface area or almost exactly twice as large as the surface area of Pluto?2 Did you know that despite Canada’s vast resources Britain actually considered handing it back to France during peace negotiations, in exchange for the sugar island of Guadeloupe?3 That Adolf Hitler was fascinated by Britain’s global strength and once remarked that Germany should ‘learn from the English, who, with 250,000 men in all, govern four hundred million Indians!’ That in the early seventeenth century, a pageant was arranged on the Thames to mark the flourishing trade with the East India Company’s new ports, which included several artificial floating islands featuring unusual spice trees and international fruit?4 That Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India from 1899 to 1905, had such a passion for detail that he even ordered the removal of pigeon droppings from Calcutta’s Public Library? That we inherited Bombay, as it was