Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by dmathuna
Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire by Caroline Elkins
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
5.0
Caroline sets out to weave an ambitious narrative, highlighting the British Empires enduring doublethink that enabled it to commit atrocity after atrocity in its colonies and still assuage the british public that Imperial benevolence was required to uplift "uncivilised" nations until they were ready to self govern.
She accomplishes this gargantuan task by highlighting how violence was an intrinsic part of colonial rule and spotlighting the fact that this was covered up by a familiar and often trotted out process of consecutive governments of setting up enquiries and commissioning reports that would eventually say it was the acts of individual "bad actors" as opposed to the systematic standard operating procedure that this landmark book would showcase it to be. This script is repeated all across the former colonies from Malaya, India, Kenya, Palestine, Egypt, South Africa, Ireland, Jamaica, & Northern Ireland.
I was curious in how this narrative would be wrapped up by it's laid out in plain sight that modern day british politics is still in the same place it was 300 years ago and is only regurgitating the same racist talking points.
Thoroughly researched with the last 200ish pages being solely comprised of notes & bibliography.
Highly recommended, with the caveat that it is incredibly dense & there will be many names, titles, positions and places mentioned.
She accomplishes this gargantuan task by highlighting how violence was an intrinsic part of colonial rule and spotlighting the fact that this was covered up by a familiar and often trotted out process of consecutive governments of setting up enquiries and commissioning reports that would eventually say it was the acts of individual "bad actors" as opposed to the systematic standard operating procedure that this landmark book would showcase it to be. This script is repeated all across the former colonies from Malaya, India, Kenya, Palestine, Egypt, South Africa, Ireland, Jamaica, & Northern Ireland.
I was curious in how this narrative would be wrapped up by it's laid out in plain sight that modern day british politics is still in the same place it was 300 years ago and is only regurgitating the same racist talking points.
Thoroughly researched with the last 200ish pages being solely comprised of notes & bibliography.
Highly recommended, with the caveat that it is incredibly dense & there will be many names, titles, positions and places mentioned.