DOC George Washington On Leadership by Richard Brookhiser in History

Description

The British Empire was the largest in all history; its reach the nearest thing to world domination ever achieved. By the eve of the Second World War; over a fifth of the world's land surface and nearly a quarter of the world's population were under some form of British rule. Yet for today's generation; the British Empire has come to stand for nothing more than a lost Victorian past--one so remote that it has ceased even to be a target for satire. The time is ripe for a reappraisal.In this major new work of synthesis and revision; Niall Ferguson argues that the British Empire should be regarded not merely as vanished Victoriana but as the very cradle of modernity. Nearly all the key features of the twenty-first-century world can be traced back to the extraordinary expansion of Britain's economy; population; and culture from the seventeenth century until the mid-twentieth--economic globalization; the communications revolution; the racial make-up of North America; the notion of humanitarianism; the nature of democracy. Displaying the originality and rigor that have made him the brightest light among British historians; Ferguson shows that far from being a subject for nostalgia; the story of the Empire is pregnant with lessons for the world today--in particular for the United States as it stands on the brink of a new kind of imperial power based once again on economic and military supremacy.