Empireworld

Empireworld: How British Imperialism Has Shaped the Globe is Sathnam Sanghera's follow-up to his previous book Empireland, which examined the impacts of British imperialism on modern Britain. In Empireworld, Sanghera expands his analysis to assess the global legacy of the British Empire. However, while this is an important subject, Empireworld ultimately proves to be a disappointing and overly gloomy read.

The book sets out to systematically document the widespread and long-lasting effects of British colonial rule across the world. Sanghera succeeds in comprehensively cataloging the far-reaching political, economic, and social repercussions of imperialism in a wide range of former colonies in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. However, the book adopts an almost encyclopedic approach, with Sanghera meticulously detailing one grim consequence after another in dispassionate prose. The result is a dense, dry text lacking narrative flow or nuance.

Moreover, Sanghera's perspective remains stubbornly pessimistic, focused on oppression, exploitation, and conflict. While these are undeniably part of the imperial legacy, there are only token acknowledgements of positive developments and progress in former colonies over the past decades. This gives the book a monotonous, depressing tone that is exhausting to get through.

After completing Empireland, Sanghera's previous book on the same topic, I found reading the thematically similar Empireworld to be an exercise in redundancy. Empireland already thoroughly convinced me of the damaging and deep-rooted impacts of British imperialism on our world. Unfortunately, Empireworld covers little new ground, just extending this bleak analysis globally while losing much of the personality that made its predecessor more engaging.

In examining such a far-reaching and multifaceted historical phenomenon, a diversity of perspectives and more nuanced analysis would have been welcome. While this book succeeds in comprehensively chronicling the adverse impacts of British imperialism worldwide, its gloomy tone and repetitive themes make it a tiring, 2-star read. I would recommend Empireworld only to readers with a strong existing interest in the topic and high tolerance for despondent historical narratives. For most, Sanghera's previous book Empireland will provide sufficient illumination of this dark chapter in history.