The Spectacle of Empire

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The British Empire was one of the most astonishing phenomena of modern history: a quarter of the earth's landmass (almost 11 million square miles) under the suzerainty of a small island off the Atlantic coast of Europe. The empire has been acquired almost by accident, an island here, a port there, but by the end of the nineteenth century it dominated the lives of over 372 million people. The English language, British ideals, British notions of justice and civilization, British taste in art and architecture could be found in every corner of the world, in Europe, Africa, America, Asia, Australasia and on what the Colonial Office list as 'nearly all the isolated islands and rocks in the ocean'.