The Petulant King
Charles III can’t keep the myth of monarchy alive. Read More Here
Charles III can’t keep the myth of monarchy alive. Read More Here
Across Asia, in places such as Myanmar, India, and Hong Kong, leaders that espouse nationalist rhetoric and bemoan their former colonial overlords see no issue with deploying laws designed by those foreign masters against their own people. These lasting vestiges of the British empire are draconian, overly broad, and vaguely worded, but they persist very […]
On January 13, 1842, Assistant Surgeon William Brydon, bloodstained and exhausted , reached the British Fort at Jalalabad. When asked where the rest of the army was, he managed to reply “I am the Army.” Thus the British learned their 20,000-man army in Afghanistan had been wiped out. Though it is perhaps the most famous example of […]
Both Gandhi, for all his saintly status a profoundly sectarian Hindu leader, and Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the leader of the All-India Muslim League and the founder of Pakistan, were dead within a year after partition. If the British government had not been in such a panic-stricken rush to get out of India, there might have […]
Iraq is really three separate geographical regions, now contested by Kurds and Arabs ethnically, Arabic and Kurdish speakers linguistically, and Sunni and Shiite Muslims religiously. Ethnically Iraqis are approximately 75 percent Arabs, 20 percent Kurds, and 5 percent Turkmen and Assyrians. Religiously they are 65 percent Shiite Muslims, 30 percent Sunni Muslims, and 5 percent […]
We are, famously or notoriously, a warrior nation. From the 18th-century continental wars to the imperial battles, the world conflicts, and the post-colonial fighting of our own times, the British have prided themselves on being first with the bayonet. Our royal family and many of our national occasions are tightly interwoven with militarism. Our bookshops have […]
Every schoolboy used to know that at the height of the empire, almost a quarter of the atlas was coloured pink, showing the extent of British rule. But that oft recited fact dramatically understates the remarkable global reach achieved by this country. A new study has found that at various times the British have invaded almost […]