By Kwasi Kwarteng
Kwasi Kwarteng is the kid of folks whose lives have been formed as topics of the British Empire, first of their local Ghana, then as British immigrants. He brings a different standpoint and impeccable educational credentials to a story historical past of the British Empire, person who avoids sweeping judgmental condemnation and in its place sees the Empire for what it used to be: a chain of neighborhood fiefdoms administered in various levels of competence or brutality by means of a solid of characters as oversized and whimsical as whatever conjured by means of Gilbert and Sullivan.
The fact, as Kwarteng unearths, is that there has been no such factor as a version for imperial management; as an alternative, appointees have been schooled in quirky, independent-minded individuality. for that reason the Empire was once the product no longer of a grand proposal yet of usually chaotic person improvisation. The idosyncracies of viceroys and soldier-diplomats who ran the colonial firm keeps to affect the realm, from Kashmir to Sudan, Baghdad to Hong Kong.
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Extra resources for Ghosts of Empire: Britain's Legacies in the Modern World
Example text
Ibid. i. 155. D. 1012, 1013; Fl. Wig. i. 165-6. Thorkell aided the English in the defence of London against Swein in 1012: ibid. i. 167. , p. 406), but this is by no means certain. , no. 735; and Florence of Worcester (i. D. 1018, 1040; Fl. Wig. i. 166, 182. In 1040 the assessment was unusually heavy, 8 marks being paid to every rower in the fleet, and 12 to each steersman: ibid. i. 194. 4Fl. Wig. i. 204 (see preceding note). D. 1052 (1051). On the general subject, see also Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, ed.
Similarly, in 1009 the king ordered that the whole nation be called out to make a stand against the Danes (yet in spite of this the Danes went exactly where they pleased). 1 In all of these passages we are given reason to assume that the great fyrd was active, but in none of them can we be absolutely certain. D. 2 But `all the English people' were summoned no less than five times against the Danes in 1016, and there is reason to doubt that all five summonses were directed toward the great fyrd.
100. ooks/Hollister. 2009 22:46:10 page_42 < previous page page_42 next page > Page 42 five-hide unit owed one man to the fyrd, we are certainly left to infer it. The wording of the military obligation which Domesday attributes to these four Devonshire towns is strikingly similar to that of another Domesday passage relating to Malmesbury in Wiltshire, which also serves on military campaigns as five hides of land. 1 Wiltshire, as we have seen, had unusually small hides, whereas the hides of Devonshire were exceptionally large, but both had the same military assessment system based upon the same fivehide unit.