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  • Little, Brown Audio

One Fine Day: Britain's Empire on the Brink

Matthew Parker

6 Reviews

Rated 0

History

The story of the British Empire at its maximum territorial extent, including a wider range of voices of the colonised than have ever been recorded before

'Breathtaking... vital and important. A wonderful read' PETER FRANKOPAN

'Marvellous... escapes the inane, balance-sheet view of Empire and sees its full complexity' SATHNAM SANGHERA

'Excellent... his mastery of detail is impeccable' DOMINIC SANDBROOK, Sunday Times

'Extraordinary... [brings] the world of a century ago to fresh, vivid life' ALEX VON TUNZELMANN

THE STORY OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE AT ITS MAXIMUM TERRITORIAL EXTENT

On Saturday 29 September 1923, the Palestine Mandate became law and the British Empire now covered a scarcely credible quarter of the world's land mass, containing 460 million people. It was the largest empire the world had ever seen. But it was beset by debt and doubts.

This book is a new way of looking at the British Empire. It immerses the reader in the contemporary moment, focusing on particular people and stories from that day, gleaned from newspapers, letters, diaries, official documents, magazines, films and novels: from a remote Pacific island facing the removal of its entire soil, across Australia, Burma, India and Kenya to London and the West Indies.

In some ways, the issues of a hundred years ago are with us still: debates around cultural and ethnic identity in a globalised world; how to manage multi-ethnic political entities; racism; the divisive co-opting of religion for political purposes; the dangers of ignorance. In others, it is totally alien. What remains extraordinary is the Empire's ability to reveal the most compelling human stories. Never before has there been a book which contains such a wide spread of vivid experiences from both colonised and coloniser: from the grandest governors to the humblest migrants, policemen and nurses.

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Praise for One Fine Day: Britain's Empire on the Brink

  • Marvellous... escapes the inane, balance-sheet view of Empire and sees it in its full complexity - Sathnam Sanghera

  • Breathtaking, extraordinarily rich and beautifully written. One Fine Day is a vital and important history that is truly global in scope and ambition. A wonderful read - Peter Frankopan

  • An engrossing and wide-ranging account of the zenith of the British Empire - with all the contradictions, brittleness, ambition and hubris that moment entailed. Across Continents and characters, Matthew Parker provides a new, global history of British imperialism which feels both epic and immediate. - Tristram Hunt

  • Extraordinary. Matthew Parker's magisterial sweep through one day of British imperial history and culture plunges us into the global complexity of the British Empire, bringing the world of a century ago to fresh, vivid life. An astonishing achievement. - Alex von Tunzelmann

  • Compelling... we remain in a state of suspense throughout - Observer

  • A refreshingly nuanced montage of the Empire on its last legs... Empire was many things and Parker belongs to that vanishing minority that recognises this. What we have here is a fair appraisal of the life of the land, elegantly synthesised... By 1923, Parker shows with suggestive brilliance in his montage, Empire was on its last legs - The Times

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Matthew Parker

Matthew Parker gained a first-class degree in English at Oxford University and now works as a writer, editor and book reviewer who specialises in modern history.

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