Empire

A persuasively argued but one-sided account of the economic and political failings of British rule in India.

In 1947, fraught Anglo-French relations came to a head in the crucible of the Indian Ocean with the outbreak of Madagascar’s Malagasy Uprising.

Iran, despite its conquest by the armies of Islam, retained its own Persian language and much of its culture. Khodadad Rezakhani examines the process by which a Zoroastrian empire became part of the Islamic world.  

A major conflict in the Chilean War of Independence was fought on 12 February 1817.

In the popular imagination, the archetypal British imperialist is the kind of daring young adventurer portrayed in the stories of Rider Haggard and Rudyard Kipling. But, reveals Will Jackson, those who settled the Empire were far more diverse than stereotypes allow.

The notion that  ‘Greed is Good’ was not born in the 1980s, nor even in the 20th century. Frank Trentmann traces the roots of today’s rampant consumer culture to the imperial ambitions of the great European powers.

The First World War threw together people from all over the world. Anna Maguire considers images of these chance meetings and the light they shed on a global conflict.

Poor and small, Portugal was at the edge of late medieval Europe. But its seafarers created the age of ‘globalisation’, which continues to this day.

Ironically, from his lofty, paternal point of view, Lord Curzon became one of the prime architects of Indian independence.

C.R. Boxer profiles the learned and pious Duchess of Aveiro, a proud and forceful member of the Iberian aristocracy, who devoted her wealth to the propagation of the Gospel overseas.