Analyse af Niall Fergusons 'Empire'

The non-fictional text “Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World” from 2003 by Niall Ferguson depicts the impact that the British Empire made, on not only the country itself but also on the rest of the world. Niall Ferguson is a British historian that has written multiple pieces on the history of colonialism. Throughout the text, he comments on all the cultural impacts the British Empire has had on our society. One of the Empire’s greatest legacies; the language. He also mentions things like liberal capitalism, democracy, and slavery as some of the great influences of the British Empire. Ferguson has a very positive mindset about the British Empire in general and means that they only have been a success throughout the years.

Essay:

Throughout this non-fictional text, Niall Ferguson mentions all the amazing impacts the British Empire has had on the world. But he is not mentioning all the terrible things that the empire is responsible for. For example, slavery. He mentions: “Yet the nineteenth-century Empire undeniably pioneered free trade, free capital movements and, with the abolition of slavery, free labor.” (l.38-40). It is known from history, that the Empire was a big part of the first slavery in the world and even though they abolished slavery, does it not make up for the big part they had in “creating” it. Ferguson only mentions all the positive sides of the Empires influence. This makes the text more subjective because it is his own opinion and not the facts that are mentioned.