Customer Reviews

A History of Britain, Volume 3: The Fate of Empire 1776-2000

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I purchased this as a remaindered copy at a local store, and based on the date coverage, I was thinking "Oh boy, I can hear the British view of the American Revolution, plus good coverage of World War II!". I listened to the tape on a recent trip, and was disappointed. There is little coverage of British foreign policy or wars in most of the book/tape. After an overlong discussion of political and social philosophy during the French Revolution and the years afterwards (there's no discussion at all of the American Revolution and no discussion of the Napoleonic Wars except as a background prop for the discussion of ideas of people like Tom Paine and Mary Wollstonecroft), the book discusses British policy in Ireland and in India. The book is extremely critical and cynical about English motives, even managing to belittle the campaign to eliminate suttee in India. After this, I was about ready to give up, but there is a reasonable discussion of Queen Victoria and of Churchill (but almost nothing about World War I or II except incidentally as they personally applied to Churchill), and a discussion the philsophy behind giving up the Empire after World War II and its effect on British life. It passed the time on the trip, but only tolerably. I paid a single-digit price for it, if I'd have paid more I'd be very unhappy. I doubt I'll buy other tapes in the series, even if I encounter them at the low price I paid for this.
Despite the above rather critical review, someone who was very interested in the social ideas and didn't care about "grand strategy" or wars or politics might love the book. Thus I give it (grudgingly) three stars rather than two.