While the current fashion is for micro-history that examines a particular group’s relationship to the Empire, there’s much to be said for the kind of top-down vision that this book provides. For the colonisers, this is often deeply unflattering – no attempt is made to shy away from the white supremacism at the core of the Empire’s mythology – but it also turns up glimpses of humanist benevolence and grand ambition. It is a book for serious people who can handle difficult moral contradictions, and will undoubtedly annoy zealots of all stripes.
One of the clearest examples of this ambiguity is Parker’s study of Hubert Murray, the Governor of Papua, who argued in favour of “preserving” local culture. Murray believed that imposing an industrial economy on a tribal people would lead to the “gradual extinction of the native itself” as, deprived of traditions, they lost the will to live. This didn’t stop him from instituting a police force and health system, or from forcefully stamping out head-hunting and cannibalism. What emerges is a debate, versions of which survive today, about “trusteeship” and its relationship to that “elusive goal of imperial unity”.
Elusive indeed. Murray’s view of the empire, as an immutable fact of life, was not shared by all of its citizens – particularly those who experienced its more brutal manifestations. Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru appear early in the book to show the seeds of self-governance in India and, in the second half, we learn about a generation of African nationalists like Herbert Macaulay, Joseph Casely Hayford and Kobina Sekyi. While his argument builds itself around important historical figures, Parker’s great strength lies in how he weaves in ephemeral material from less-known individuals: newspaper articles, diary scraps, letters. The result is alchemical, combining different lives into a clear and confident narrative of creaking grandeur and new social visions.
When we travel through Burma, the narrative pivots around the police cadet George Orwell, who arrived in 1922 at only 19 years old. It’s characteristically interesting, but its consistent return to the testimony of the author (who saw imperialism as “very largely a racket”) lacks the variety of deep perspectives that makes other chapters excellent. This raises the book’s major shortcoming. The back end, where the notes and bibliography should properly be, instead directs me to Parker’s website. I can’t imagine why they were deemed unworthy of printing – especially when you see how robust Parker’s research actually is – but that bizarre decision is the only real failing of an otherwise superb work.
One Fine Day: Britain’s Empire on the Brink is published by Abacus at £25. To order your copy for £19.99, call 0844 871 1514 or visit Books
