Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power - Paperback

by Niall Ferguson (Author)

A bestselling historian shows how the British Empire created the modern world

"Scrupulous scholarship and a rattling good tale." --Wall Street Journal

The British Empire was the largest in all history: the nearest thing to global domination ever achieved. The world we know today is in large measure the product of Britain's Age of Empire. The global spread of capitalism, telecommunications, the English language, and institutions of representative government--all these can be traced back to the extraordinary expansion of Britain's economy, population, and culture from the seventeenth century until the mid-twentieth. On a vast and vividly colored canvas, Empire shows how the British Empire acted as midwife to modernity.

Displaying the originality and rigor that have made Niall Ferguson one of the world's foremost historians, Empire is a dazzling tour de force--a remarkable reappraisal of the prizes and pitfalls of global empire.

Author Biography

Niall Ferguson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, former Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University and current senior fellow at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University, a visiting professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing, and founder and managing director of advisory firm Greenmantle LLC. He is the author of several New York Times bestsellers, The Ascent of Money, Civilization, and The War of the World.