Empire Histories

Arts and Letters Daily points to a long profile of Niall Ferguson, British historian who has written revisionist accounts of the British Empire. He argues that the Empire was overall a successful, liberal and benevolent enterprise and that America should learn its lessons and follow the same footsteps.

Not everybody agrees of course. Here are two articles that I always wanted to link to. Johann Hari, the wonderful young British columnist, cuts him to size here and Priyamvada Gopal, an academic at the Cambridge University responds here. Both are shrill but very entertaining and enlightening.

There was a review by Hari in last week's New Republic of a book by another revisionist historian. Another nice hatchet-job! (The author calls the review "despicable and cowardly" in his letter to the new republic.) Hari's website is also worth browsing, just for a sample, his execution of Ayn Rand.