Shop Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Buy used:
$2.36
$3.98 delivery January 8 - 9. Details
Or fastest delivery Thursday, January 2. Details
Used: Acceptable | Details
Sold by glenthebookseller
Condition: Used: Acceptable
Comment: Item in good condition. Textbooks may not include supplemental items i.e. CDs, access codes etc...
Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.
Added to

Sorry, there was a problem.

There was an error retrieving your Wish Lists. Please try again.

Sorry, there was a problem.

List unavailable.
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

Richard Gott
Follow
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

Britain's Empire: Resistance, Repression and Revolt Hardcover – November 7, 2011

by Richard Gott (Author)
4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 51 ratings
See all formats and editions
This revelatory new history punctures the still widely held belief that the British Empire was an enlightened and civilizing enterprise of great benefit to its subject peoples. Instead, Britain’s Empire reveals a history of systemic repression and almost continual violence, showing how British rule was imposed as a military operation and maintained as a military dictatorship. For colonized peoples, the experience was a horrific one—of slavery, famine, battle and extermination.

Yet, as Richard Gott illustrates, the empire’s oppressed peoples did not go gently into that good night. Wherever Britain tried to plant its flag, there was resistance. From Ireland to India, from the American colonies to Australia, Gott chronicles the backlash. He shows, too, how Britain provided a blueprint for the genocides of twentieth-century Europe, and argues that its past leaders must rank alongside the dictators of the twentieth century as the perpetrators of crimes against humanity on an infamous scale. In tracing this history of resistance, all but lost to modern memory, Richard Gott recovers these forgotten peoples and puts them where they deserve to be: at the heart of the story of Britain’s empire.
Previous slide of product details
  1. Print length
    576 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Verso
  4. Publication date
    November 7, 2011
  5. Dimensions
    0.67 x 0.2 x 0.93 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1844677389
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1844677382
  8. See all details
Next slide of product details
The%20Amazon%20Book%20Review
The Amazon Book Review
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.

Similar items that may deliver to you quickly

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1
Previous set of slides
  1. Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire
    Caroline Elkins
     
    Paperback
    -17%$19.96
    List: $24.00
    Get it as soon as Friday, Jan 3
    FREE Shipping on orders over $35 shipped by Amazon
  2. Mandates and empire
    Leonard Woolf
    Paperback
    $10.99
    Get it as soon as Friday, Jan 3
    FREE Shipping on orders over $35 shipped by Amazon
  3. Anglo-India and the End of Empire
    Uther Charlton-Stevens
     
    Hardcover
    -13%$34.76
    List: $39.95
    Get it as soon as Friday, Jan 3
    FREE Shipping on orders over $35 shipped by Amazon
    Only 13 left in stock - order soon.
  4. Step by step: the governance of empire
    Reginald V. Harris
    Paperback
    -66%$3.35
    List: $9.99
    Get it as soon as Friday, Jan 3
    FREE Shipping on orders over $35 shipped by Amazon
  5. Imperialism and the National Question
    V. I. Lenin
     
    Paperback
    -20%$15.99
    List: $19.95
    Get it as soon as Friday, Jan 3
    FREE Shipping on orders over $35 shipped by Amazon
  6. Colonial Violence: European Empires and the Use of Force
    Dierk Walter
     
    Hardcover
    -9%$26.24
    List: $28.95
    FREE Shipping on orders over $35 shipped by Amazon
    Temporarily out of stock.
Next set of slides

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
51 global ratings

Review this product

Share your thoughts with other customers
Write a customer review

Customers say

Customers find the book insightful and useful. They appreciate the author's sober exposition of colonialism's violence and oppression, as well as his intellectual conscience and crisp language. The book provides an inexorable recounting of British aggression worldwide since the eighteenth century.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

Select to learn more
Reading qualityExposition
4 customers mention "Reading quality"4 positive0 negative

Customers find the book insightful and useful. They appreciate Richard Gott's clear language and intellectual conscience. The book is described as an excellent read and a true gem from a defendant of the Empire.

"...Richard Gott gives the reader good insight of what it meant for a populace finding itself suddenly under the boot of an overwhelmingly strong..." Read more

"...The honesty of his intellectual conscience, page after page, given he's white, is as if he apprehends completely those who were on the receiving end..." Read more

"This is an excellent book. It organizes much historical material to make its overall point: empires require violence to be empires...." Read more

"An inexorable recounting of colonialism's violence and oppression. Useful reading as we contemplate the over 100 military bases the U.S. maintains..." Read more

3 customers mention "Exposition"3 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the book's exposition. They find it an honest and unapologetic account of colonialism's violence and oppression. The book makes clear that British aggression has been worldwide since the 18th century.

"...the 1850's - he makes it eminently clear that the tentacles of British aggression world-wide since the eighteenth century still reaches into our..." Read more

"...and crisp language, it's a remarkably sober, unapologetic, expose of the evils of empire, British empire...." Read more

"An inexorable recounting of colonialism's violence and oppression...." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

  • Quiltlover
    5.0 out of 5 stars Ever Wondering Why the Unrest All Over the World Today....
    Reviewed in the United States on October 23, 2013
    Verified Purchase
    ... ? "BRITAIN'S EMPIRE: Resistance Repression and Revolt" holds clear answers. Although the author, Richard Gott, covers only one century - from the 1750's to the 1850's - he makes it eminently clear that the tentacles of British aggression world-wide since the eighteenth century still reaches into our time, the twenty-first.

    For the countries the British military invaded, the "Glorious" Empire holds no romance. Many had their populations decimated to the point of extinction, an earlier version of what the 20th century Nazis termed 'Vernichtung.' Tribal cultures and distinctions were wiped out, supplanted by the chaos still reigning today. (20th century Germany was decried as militaristic; we need to look across the channel to their British cousins from whom they seem to have learned.)

    Richard Gott gives the reader good insight of what it meant for a populace finding itself suddenly under the boot of an overwhelmingly strong invader of their country. The mutual cooperation of various ethnic groups, the adaptations they made to one another, and the dynamics of assimilation developed over long periods of time are immediately crushed by the invading outsider. (I think of Secretary Madelaine Albright's book "Prague Winter" that depicts the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia that crushed the culture of the Czechs AND Germans living there.)

    Richard Gott's work covers only the first of the two centuries of the "glorious" British empire; I would be very grateful to the author if he could present the second century of it - from the 1850's to the 1950's - in the same manner.
    7 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • J. Edgar
    4.0 out of 5 stars Relentless
    Reviewed in the United States on February 24, 2022
    I read this immediately after reading the new book on Smedley Butler and how his career was tied up in America’s empire. America wasn’t the first, as Gott painstakingly outlines.

    This book was hard to read structurally. Each chapter is the gloss on some colonial expedition or another, and they’re fairly short but there are a lot of them. The basic form is something like “In 1832 a new expedition was raised led by John Quincy Shortbottom with a contingent of 500 men. Their initial attack was repelled, but a new expedition the next year overthrew the fort.” There’s five hundred pages of this. There’s a chapter titled “White settlers devise new ways to hunt the Australian aboriginals”. The book is relentless because the British were relentless. In the period covered, they spanned the globe.

    A few thoughts:
    Part of me wants to say that the British in their period were amoral, but if you compare how they treated white settler or convict colonies versus how they treated native peoples of color, you can see the immorality of the cruel racism driving them. They were repelled and driven out of the United States and Argentina, but they kept coming for the South African native people.

    Part of what the book is missing is the “why” of this whole thing. There were great changes in England at the time. This is a great companion piece to “The Conditions of the Working Class in England” or “The Making of the English Working Class,” but Gott doesn’t really examine the material forces in the home islands that were driving the expeditions and expansion. Enclosures and capitalism led to a huge restructuring of society of people that needed to go somewhere, it didn’t matter if there were already people where they were being sent.

    One thing I didn’t realize was how much the British leaned on native people to be part of their armies. They were able to leverage their forces by enlisting battalions of people from the area. In India, these Sepoy forces were a majority of the fighting force. On one hand it is gross that people would fight against their own peoples, but the same kinds of forces on the home islands were at play in India and South Africa – you need to eat and the realm of possibilities sometimes narrow.

    The biggest weakness of the book is a lack of maps. Gott writes of historical subunits of the subcontinent and Australia and islands in the east and west indies and it would be nice to have graphical help to conceptualize these moves in forces.
    3 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Kindle Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Remarkable Intellectual Conscience
    Reviewed in the United States on August 16, 2019
    Verified Purchase
    Gott's consciousness and crisp language, it's a remarkably sober, unapologetic, expose of the evils of empire, British empire. The honesty of his intellectual conscience, page after page, given he's white, is as if he apprehends completely those who were on the receiving end of empire. A true gem of a voice from a defendant of empire, a great pleasure to read. How british empire behave in India, China, Australia, etc, requires men of strong "Gottian" spine, voicing truth, rather than vetebrae curling as empire apologist, accusing polemics, ......
    3 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Farouk M.
    5.0 out of 5 stars very good condition
    Reviewed in the United States on September 11, 2023
    Verified Purchase
    pleased
    Helpful
     Report
  • Shawn Parkhurst
    5.0 out of 5 stars This is an excellent book. It organizes much historical material to make ...
    Reviewed in the United States on March 20, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    This is an excellent book. It organizes much historical material to make its overall point: empires require violence to be empires. Ideologies help, but violence is fundamental, though uneven spatially and temporally.
    5 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Sandra Lindberg
    5.0 out of 5 stars Useful reading as we contemplate the over 100 military bases ...
    Reviewed in the United States on March 14, 2015
    Verified Purchase
    An inexorable recounting of colonialism's violence and oppression. Useful reading as we contemplate the over 100 military bases the U.S. maintains around the globe.
    2 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report

Top reviews from other countries

  • Active shopper
    3.0 out of 5 stars Conspicuous by its absence!
    Reviewed in Canada on August 16, 2023
    Verified Purchase
    Conspicuous by its absence – a significant oversight by the author – there is only a cursory mention of the Fédon Rebellion in Grenada (1795-96). Unfortunate (what else did he leave out?)
    Report
  • chris
    5.0 out of 5 stars great book and interesting
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 18, 2024
    Verified Purchase
    very interesting read - tells the brutal truth about empire and of brave people who resisted - highly recommend and think it should be on school curriculum
    Report
  • Amazon Customer
    4.0 out of 5 stars Well written
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 18, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    Well written but perhaps too many subjects covered with insufficient detail for each one.
    Report
  • Elvira
    5.0 out of 5 stars Best overwiew of the history of the Empire
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 19, 2018
    Verified Purchase
    Interesting and overall history of the British empire. Critical view, thought provoking, easy to read.
    Report
  • Ray Vision
    5.0 out of 5 stars the truth about the empire
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 29, 2013
    Verified Purchase
    would recommend this to anyone who is prepared to listen to what the empire was really like - brutal, cruel and racist
    Report