'Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power'
by Niall Ferguson
Basic Books, $35
At its height, the British Empire governed nearly a quarter of the world's population and dominated every ocean on Earth, all from a relatively tiny set of rain-swept islands off the coast of Europe. The British, so goes conventional thinking, settled - and then lost - its American colonies, ruled India, established a prison population in Australia, mapped the depths of Africa and played a key role in perpetuating slavery. The British Empire disintegrated after World War II, unable to muster the will or cash to fund the enterprise, and is now commonly viewed as an anti-democratic exploiter of Third World colonies, one that left ruin in its wake.
In "Empire," British upstart historian Niall Ferguson begs to differ. Ferguson argues that the British Empire in fact offered incalculable benefits to the world and to its colonies. Ferguson, a Research Fellow at Oxford and a New York University professor, makes no apologies for challenging the politically correct view of the British Empire.
At the outset, Ferguson acknowledges the British Empire's sins but argues that it in fact exported a great deal that was worthwhile. Democratic principles, the free flow of capital, labor and technology, and stable governments all followed British colonialization. Ferguson argues that British interference with local customs was sometimes warranted, even if imposed from without. Widow burning in India, he writes, should have been outlawed, even if it was a long-settled part of local practice.
In 350 pages, richly illustrated with tables, graphs and maps, Ferguson provides a whirlwind historical tour of the . From English slave traders to South African revolts, from David Livingston's bushwhacking in Africa to the ungrateful American colonies, he provides a fascinating short course on colonial history complete with pith helmets, red coats and stiff upper lips.
The British imposed a system of government on its colonies that protected private property, imposed a functioning legal system, and provided stable and honest government, allowing the countries to develop within a framework that scarcely would have been possible without direct British intervention. Countries that were once British colonies had a significantly better chance of achieving enduring democratization after independence than those ruled by other countries or left to their own fate.
Ferguson argues that the evidence simply overwhelms any contention that the British Empire impoverished its colonies. In fact, he argues, although many former colonies remain desperately poor, the real disparity has only emerged since they achieved independence from Britain. And the list of the world's stable democracies reads like a virtual catalog of former British colonies: the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and India, just to name a few.
Ferguson's writing is engaging, thought-provoking and - at times - frankly outrageous. His condensed history is a challenge to the United States, reminiscent of one issued more than 100 years ago by Rudyard Kipling on the occasion of the Philippine-American war, a demand to the U.S. to shoulder its imperial responsibilities (in rather famously inappropriate language): "Take up the White Man's Burden, And reap his old reward; The blame of those ye better, the hate of those ye guard... "
Like it or not, he argues, the United States stands alone in the world as a superpower. The United States today is vastly wealthier relative to the rest of the world than Britain ever was; the U.S. economy is larger than that of the next four nations (Japan, Germany, France and Britain) combined. American power already makes it an empire whether it wants the role or not. The American problem, he argues, is its own reluctance to export its people, capital and culture throughout the world to those "backward regions" where, he argues, it is desperately needed and, if ignored, will breed the greatest threats to global security.
Although carefully argued in scholarly prose, Ferguson's point could hardly be more inflammatory in a world embittered by American unilateral action in Iraq. Most of the European Union, a large segment of the American population and virtually all of the Arab world are rather unlikely to conclude that the world needs more aggressive American intervention rather than less.
And Ferguson fails to address a key point in the debate over America's foreign policy: whether American power is best exercised through the international institutions that the United States itself created and nurtured through the postwar era or through unilateral military action.
That's the real argument that today has engaged editorial pages from Paris to Washington, is likely to define the coming election and will shape the coming era as it unfolds. Unfortunately Ferguson, in his rush to draw lessons for the Americans in how to run the world like the British once did, overlooks that debate altogether.
