A glorified rehash of the Raj

Book review of Empireland: How Imperialism Has Shaped Modern Britain

The problem with writing about the British Raj, especially by a self-confessed non-specialist, is that there is already a virtual cottage industry of scholarly works on the subject, both in its defence and against it. Producing another door-stopper, unless it has something profoundly new to add, seems like a vanity project. Indeed, the author himself acknowledges it would have been “impossible to write [this book] without the number of history books and articles I consulted”. So many, in fact, that he hopes “I have not slipped at any stage into plagiarism”.

“The empire has inspired so many books — mention you’re