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The Old Order.("Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power")(Book Review)-

Article Excerpt
Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power, by Niall Ferguson (Basic, 352 pp., $35)

In 1897, the year of her Diamond Jubilee, England's Queen Victoria ruled over a quarter of the world, more than 400 million souls. Taking into account her impressive economic holdings and authority elsewhere, her country's influence could be felt in virtually every nation on earth. And though little now lingers of the Empire's political supremacy, its cultural and economic legacy remains ubiquitous. England laid the foundation for global capitalism, her language the standard for business and culture worldwide. Her progeny, the United States, has become the world's sole superpower, exporting its message of democracy and free-market capitalism to nations around the world.

That's the saccharine (or -- some critics would charge -- hopelessly revisionist) version of the Empire's legacy. Countless detractors of Rule Britannica will offer a far more pessimistic assessment, contending that England's hegemony was built on slavery, unjust imperial domination, and an unchecked, exploitative laissez-faire economic policy -- all of which left the world cluttered with the ethnic hostilities and economic catastrophes still being sorted out in Africa, India, Ireland, and the...