Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire

I have (almost) finished reading what I consider to be a very important new book and thought I might share some thoughts in the hope that others might read it as well. Legacy of Violence, A History of the British Empire, by Carolyn Elkins is a kind of scholarly kamikaze mission that is designed to, and successfully does, achieve three things:i. It thoroughly reshapes our understanding of the English people and the British Empire and, at the same time, depressingly reminds us of the depravities of which humans are capable;ii. It completely calls into question the legitimacy of positivism as a legal theory in much the same way as Nazi law.iii. It challenges liberal philosophy with its assertion and, to me, not entirely convincing but persuasively challenging assertion that violence is inherent in liberalism.So to begin (briefly, I promise).A caution. This book is very long and very detailed, far more detailed than it needs to be for Professor Elkins to make her points. But it seems obvious to me that this is a strategic decision. Professor Elkins is writing the revisionist history of the British Empire. “When you strike at a king [(as it were)], you must kill him.” Professor Elkin is figuratively committing regicide. She clearly knows that if she is to survive academically she must make her case irrefutable. Difficult enough, since it appears that the British tried to destroy all the evidence when they left each colony. Hence the length. Hence the detail. Or so I think.I. The British. At the simplest level, Elkins tells a horror story, and one that gets worse as it progresses. I had some sense of the brutality used by the British against the populations of their colonies, but this story of violence is of another order. Brutality in South Africa and Ireland was appalling. But then when we move to non-white colonies, India of course, the former Ottoman Palestine (I consider both Jews and Arabs to be non-white), the means used to torture, murder, and engage in mass killings become worse and worse, even as Elkins reports stories of British soldiers enjoying their work. By the time we get to Malaysia, the story just becomes grotesque and very painful and difficult to read. I’m about to reach the part where we return to Africa, confident that it will continue to get worse.II. The Law. This is also a story about law, as Elkins describes British behavior as legalized violence. This simply is sad. The Common Law is truly one of the greatest achievements in history. And the British always remain true to the law. As Elkins points out, every time they needed to improve on and increase their violence, they made it legal first.The irony of this might be lost on non-lawyers. You see, England is also the font of the theory of positivism – if it looks like a law and smells like a law it is a law, regardless of content. (The traditional counterpoint is natural law, which considers the validity of a law to be based on its content). This theory of positivism was slammed after the Nazis and Nuremburg. Nazi law was, after all, law, according to positivism, and adherents of the theory (including prominent English scholars at the fore) rushed to refine it in order to maintain the basic validity of the theory while excluding Nazi and Nazi-like law.But, as Professor Elkins tells us – the British did exactly the same thing! Well, not exactly. Instead of one man determining the law, you had a Parliament and delegated discretion to ministers but, as is the constitution in England, Parliament’s determination of the law is final and therefore whatever law it passes is constitutional. But the content of the law (leaving aside formal genocide, which is Britain’s only saving grace), was largely as immoral as the law of the Nazis. Positivists really need to get back to work.III. Liberalism Challenged. Professor Elkins posits the theory that violence is intrinsic to liberalism, intrinsic because, in order to achieve liberalism’s progressive promise, force and restraint must be used on those to whom it is promised. Hence the repulsive “white man’s burden,” articulated as regret every time the British forces engage in torture, mass killings, destructions of towns and villages, murdering children, etc. You get the point. This is the dimension of Elkins' argument of which I am least convinced, not because I am by taste and training philosophically liberal, but because I think it might be possible to use persuasion rather than restraint to achieve what liberals consider to be progress (which might also be a more effective way of infusing real liberal values in people than killing them).In this I think the United States might be an example. The white people who inhabited North America were not interested in turning the indigenous people into self-governing states, and certainly not Black Americans whom they were terrified would revolt if given the freedom to do so. Despite these disgusting aspects of American history, I think it might be the case that liberal self-governance was achieved there without violent restraint. I need to think some more.A final point. I am somebody who has always been eternally optimistic about human nature. That has been pretty difficult to sustain over the past decade, but I have tried. After reading Professor Elkins’ book, I give up. I don’t know what will replace my optimism – not despair, I hope – but I can no longer sustain my previous perspective.This is a truly important book. Read it. I hope Professor Elkins receives all of the accolades she deserves.

When covering centuries of history, and scores of colonial entities, obvious a good amount of tangents are going to be required to get the big picture. Social, Political, Legal, etc. aspects all have to be taken into account, and Elkins does this. Some folks may like it, while others will not, but it is necessary to do.Ultimately, however, the meat of this book, in all of its glory, does a phenomenal job at exposing colonialism for what it is. (conquering others and then ruling over them with force and violence in the name of money and power - all while creating laws on the books to "legalize/justify/excuse" their actions which are being done to "help" other nations become "civilized". . . )The 1 star reviews, at the time that I write this, are comical. One only read 100 pages. Another, despite Elkins' 88 pages of cited sources, claims that the author just spouts opinions. Another claims that Britain (outside of one or two examples that are "exceptions to the norm") didn't rely on violence to oppress colonies, but rather mere "intimidation" and "political manipulation." Wow! LOL Thus, Britain "intimidated" and "manipulated" a fourth of the globe's land mass and 700 MILLION people into subjects - and didn't use force to keep them oppressed. I guess Britain is simply a benevolent country of brotherly love! Smh The thousands of pages of discovered documents (that Britain intentionally tried to burn and/or hide from the public) dispute this idiotic notion of non-violence by Britain. Those documents show/prove that Britain did manage by violence, and Elkins does a great job of illustrating this fact. The same reviewer also cited how Britain's violence wasn't really that bad if you compare it to France and Algeria. Making such a statement speaks for itself. (using that logic, France/Algeria wasn't that bad if you compare it to WW2. smh) These types of reviews are of the same ilk that would say American slavery wasn't really that bad. That, with the exception of some cruel and violent slave owners, most treated their slaves kindly and treated them like part of the family. Yeah, no. Either these folks did not read the book, or they are in complete denial. (opinions are one thing, while facts are another. . . ) Please don't let poor review scores based on such illogical notions keep you from reading this book.As long as people continue to look at history and society through such a white racial frame, books like this will continue to be be all the more important to help set the record straight. Elkins does a great job of cutting through all of the historical and literal WHITE-washing treatment that colonialism has received over time. Hats off to her and her efforts of providing such history, and providing DOCUMENTED FACTS across so many facets concerning Britain's historical empire while doing so.Don't sleep on the ending, either. The last 20-25 pages in the Epilogue are worth the price of the book alone. Simply wonderful and superb summary of race relations in Britain's last handful of decades, and how their colonial history has influenced them. Just a brilliant conclusion for a brilliant book.All in all, a very fascinating and engaging read. Whether you're interested in their history with Ireland, Africa, the Middle East, Malaya, the Caribbean, etc., it's all there. At the end of the day, it's always as disheartening as it is scandalous, that this many millions of people have had to die in the name of "civilization", at the very hands of those who claim to be the most "civilized". You can form your own opinion as to who the true "savages" are. . .

Legacy of Violence is a history of the British Empire that some will call revisionist, but may be a much needed corrective to the centuries of British aggrandizing their colonial adventures. However, I have to admit it is tediously slow going. We get example after example of British racism and torture in Ireland, Egypt, Malay, South Africa and India, etc. Really every place the sun shone on the British Empire. Readers should be prepared for a long slog when they get into the book. And it is all very well documented. My edition was over 1400 pages and features nearly 500 devoted to notes, bibliography and index. As I pressed on thorough the book, I hoped for an epilogue that made some sense of it all, as when a prosecutor sums up his/her case. But the same pace continues post freedom, when the colonies break away following World War II. Edkins features her own role in testifying about British atrocities in Kenya at length. Of course a thorough presentation of the evidence is enough for one to draw their own conclusions.

Extensive analysis if the British faux justification for colonization and empire, and the horrific implementation in 20th century administration during the decline of empire. Extensively researched and supported by multiple primary sources, this book should restructure your thinking about the colonial 'white man's burden ' lies.

"Legacy of Violence" is essentially a critique of British imperialism. Much of this work - though not all - is very well researched and the view it offers of the racism and violence that lay at the heart of the British empire is entirely convincing - as is the author's suggestion that its legacy includes, in the 21st century, the kind of exceptionalist and racist attitudes that have produced Brexit and the Windrush scandal. Two weaknesses are worth mentioning. First, there is a degree of undisguised nastiness in the author's description of pretty-well every historical British figure to whom she refers regardless of whether or not they were committed "imperialists". Her obvious distaste for the country and its people spills over occasionally into intemperence. A second weakness exemplifies the first - which is her mischaracterization of certain figures, among them T.E Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) whom she dismisses with cheap insults that are not based on references to any of the multiple scholarly works on Lawrence - except one whose title is given incorrectly (which makes one suspect that the author hadn't read it). Ironically, Lawrence would, I suspect, have largely agreed with Professor Elkins' dark view of British imperialism. Finally, missing from Professor Elikins account are British colonial policies and activities in North America - especially prior to 1776 - but also up to and including 1812.

Whenever the topic of British colonies comes up the supposedly "benevolent" character and many relativistic comparisons come up, trying to justify millions of deaths and endless suffering by many people who never were asked whether they wanted to be "civilized" by their kind overlords from the British Isles.Based on immense amount of research Prof. Elkins points out the systematic nature of legalized abuse, murder and suppression in British colonies across the world over more than a century and the many attempts by its beneficiaries to put a very positive spin on it, internally and abroad until today (see Boris Johnson's recent "Global Britain" speech). It's breathtaking to justify or relativize anything positive about a system where basic legal protections were denied to hundreds of millions of people because of their race, skin color or opposition to colonial suppression (see Boer wars). Also if millions die through famine happening during your watch and when you were busy plundering a country, there is really no way you can absolve yourself from any responsibility.With many school systems still glossing over or relativizing the abuse and murder that had been systemic in British colonies (the great Commonwealth), this book undoubtedly will find many shrill critics who do not want to have their nostalgic- or nationalistic views disturbed. But similar to many historical topics that have been conveniently overlooked in the West (see extinction of entire native populations, state sponsored opium trade, or toppling of democratic governments in South America or Middle East) hopefully this research will help open up the door further for a more fact based and realistic general opinion on the true nature and disastrous human cost of British colonial violence and oppression. Stopping short of reparations (which the current benefactors of the colonial system try to avoid at all cost for obvious reasons), a truthful representation in education and media is the least that should be done to do belated justice to its many victims.

I so much wanted to like this, to be impressed by it but I am afraid I wasn't. It all kind of floated by me. There was very little that I didn't already know (didn't Ian Cobain do a lot of this in his book). I was waiting for the new information and kept waiting. The bulk of the modern era is about Palestine, Malaya, Kenya and Cyprus, well-trod and other places not covered at all and with quite a lot missing. Essentially, where was the violence? The Military Intelligence officers dunking Jewish heads into buckets of water, Special Branch officers in Kenya killing their prisoners by strangling them with piano-wire as one told me or the MI6 officer in the Middle East inventing a hook for the stomach to use on those he tortured. There are some vague attempts to connect the dots such as the Aden gang arriving in Northern Ireland but no detail. It didn't come together for me as a real blast against the Empire. It dribbled out in the end. Much too genteel.

A great and powerful book

Fantastic insight in how not to run an empire.