Heaven's Command: An Imperial Progress - Pax Britannica, Volume 1

When I was at school, I thought History was boring. Given the books and teachers I had, my views were probable justified. Jan Morris, on the other hand, makes it all fascinating.This is a thoughtful and fair-minded account of perhaps the most important stage in bringing Britain to where it is today.When Victoria came to the throne, she and Britain did not have and in general did not want an Empire. But over the next 60 years, an amazing conglomeration of powerful, interesting, and sometimes fairly weird characters, each with their own often conflicting aims, ambitions and methods, assembled the "empire upon which the sun never sets" and made Victoria the ruler of a large part of the world. Some wanted to make money, some wanted to bring order and peace, some wanted to uphold "human rights", some wanted to spread their religion. There was no grand plan or overarching strategy or controlling mastermind, but somehow it all happened. Read all about it (or listen) here.There were disasters too, of course - perhaps less well reported in the ordinary histories. Ominously, the greatest and bloodiest failure was the misguided attempt to bring order and harmony to Afghanistan!!

The theme of Heaven's Command, the history of the British Empire from 1837 to 1897, is a huge and potentially unmanageable one. Jan Morris's approach is to present a sequence of scenes, among others the first Afghan war, the suppression of the Thugs, the Jamaican uprising, the Irish famine, the quest for the source of the Nile, the Zulu war and the defeat by the Boers at Mujuba Hill. She evokes these events almost cinematically, and has a wonderful skill in describing landscapes, buildings, weather, clothes, sounds. She described the purpose of the book as:'to make people feel that they've had a window thrown open for them, to let them survey for an hour or two the whole wide panorama of a world that's gone'.The metaphor of the book as a panorama, or rather a sequence of panoramic views, is an apt one as her evocations are intensely visual. She is broadly sympathetic to the imperial venture, but this does not blind her to its brutality: one of the saddest chapters deals with the fate of the Tasmanian aborigines.It is a marvellously entertaining book, vigorously read in the audio version by Roy McMillan.

Anyone interested in the genesis of the British Empire should read!

Brilliant item

As described, quick delivery

This was bought for a Christmas present not yet given, but I know that it is an excellent audio book

Simply terrific. A tour de force.

I have the abridged 6cds version. The total time is 7 hour 30 min. I highly recommend this as the reading by Roy McMillan is excellent. Roy manages to convey the excitement of the British empire well. I bought this while touring UK in May 2018.

中古本でしたが、書き込みなどはなく中は奇麗でよかったです。が、挿絵や写真が黒白でしかも不鮮明で少しがっかりしました。これを買ったのは翻訳本を読んで、人名や土地名の原語での表記を知りたかったのと、英語教材として良いと考えたからです。ジャン・モリスのこのシリーズ、Pax Britannnika や　Farewell the Trumpets も翻訳で読みましたが、いずれもすばらしく、驚きの連続でした。司馬遼太郎の世界が箱庭細工程度のものに見えて来ます。イギリス人の祖先はヴァイキングであった事を改めて考えさせられました。又世界各地の旅行案内にもとても役立つと思いました。

Arrived safely and as described. I'd ordered from a seller listed in Toronto but it came from the UK with no extra charges for shipping. great!

I thoroughly enjoyed Jan Morris' survey of the 19th century British Empire. Having studied this topic from numerous other sources and perspectives, I still found this to be a refreshing account, and one that tied numerous facets into a cohesive whole. While some might regard Morris as writing with too much of a pro-British bias, I did not find the lack of politically-correct 'empire-bashing' to be problematic. Indeed, Morris emphasizes the negative (and the ludicrous) right alongside the positive. In the few instances where the perspective is obviously skewed, the informed student of history can easily read between the lines. In short, for the curious, I recommend this as the finest single volume on this topic, both for its informative content and its exciting, engaging writing style. I look forward to reading more of Morris' works.

The book was a present. It arrived two days later than scheduled, but that’s OK. Good condition.

This work of inspired genius explains so much of the present day world that it - and its companion books - should be base reading in school curricula. And particularly for anyone living in a former European 19th century colony, whether British or otherwise. It's the engaging work of history I've personally read, a fabulous antidote to the flat, self-hating and soul-destroying Marxist historians and culture critics (the majority, whether they know it or not) and far outclasses even entertaining historical autobiographies or fictions like those of Michener. And yet it's all fact based. It's alive.And has inspired other writers, notably Thedore Dalrymble, who seems to have looted not less that three successive chapters for three of his own less rounded, more ideological books.Andrew BoughtonSydney, Australia,