About book Heaven's Command: An Imperial Progress (2003)
We don’t want to fight, but by jingo if we do,We’ve got the ships, we’ve got the men, we’ve got the money too! INNOCENTS ABROAD!This is history told through a patchwork of breezy anecdotes — that might not even fit together well enough, but still achieves the objective remarkably well. The narrative flits in and out across the world, now Australia, now India, now Afghanistan, now Congo, and so on. The idea was probably to allow the reader to visualize through these series of picturizations the full magnificence that was the Empire.More than the anecdotal nature, the selection of anecdotes themselves is curious. They are largely personal anecdotes, dealing with individuals. The historical narrative is stitched together from these short, quick personal sketches.The Middle PathWhile enormously interesting, this selection also betrays the by-default-note of imperialistic apology writ large over such an approach. It is hard to talk of individuals without touching the picture up with romanticism, especially when only eulogizing records exist, the crushed ones having not kept individual/personal records, especially when Morris searches out the medium-level players, not the Viceroys, Governor-Generals, Kings and Ministers — the on-the-ground players — who exist now only in British-written annals or diaries/letters and loom larger than life, as they had to.This is a new method to the rhetoric of imperial defense, at least to this reviewer — the Imperial Progress across the world is shown from a middle view — the view of the decent men and women who participated in the everyday pushing along of the imperial cart.But why focus on them?Why leave out the two ends of the spectrum - the Imperial Station Masters and the common men among the imperial subjects?Because this middle view is surprisingly conducive to showing a decent and forgivable view of the Imperial ‘Progress’ — a on-high view would expose the despotism, racism and blatant menace that accompanied the progress; while the bottom view would expose that the word ‘progress’ is way beyond an excusable misnaming of the imperial process.I still do not give the book less than a middling star rating since the language is good, the prose is breezy, and it is a decent reading experience. It is extremely light reading and is a good parlor-table book, enjoyable and non-thought provoking.It is hard to capture that spirit when tackling a momentous period. The author attempted and captured that brilliantly. She also manages to make me feel defensive and a complete prig for criticizing such a breezy and good-natured account.That is the strength of the book and the danger. The author does starts with a frank admission of bias, adding to the breezy tally-ho approach, forcing any offended readers to forgive her and just enjoy the journey. I am sorry to report that it can easily work. I was caught off-guard many times, especially when it was the other countries that were the subject of discussion. Only when the focus shifted back to India was I able to detect the prejudices of the breezy account.In fact, how Morris would treat the 1857 Revolt (not mutiny!) was something I looked forward to — I knew that would act as a touchstone to how I would judge the book’s biases. True to expectations, she shows the ‘mutiny’ as a bumbling no-show and the britishers as magnanimously outraged avengers. It is treated as a complete farce. That decided it for me and from then on my reading was much more alert to undertones.I noticed how trivial details are lovingly dwelt on, to convey the full sense of a nostalgic lost world; while tragic events such as the burning of the Summer Palace in Beijing (an event that left such a psychological scar on Chinese history) are passed by with a single breezy sentence: ‘a well-placed blow to Tartar pride.'What is most noticeable, however, is that the only subject people (empires enemies) who are given a semblance of humanity are the Boers and the Australian settlers — both European in origins, of course. The Irish is also given a more personalized picturization but there is a thread of hostility and reductionism detectable there too.Sample a selection: ... when in 1897 good old Queen Victoria celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of her accession to the throne, the nation made it gaudily and joyously a celebration of Empire. Never had the people been more united in pride, and more champagne was imported that year than ever before in British history. What a century it had been for them all! How far the kingdom had come since that distant day when Emily Eden, hearing upon the Ganges bank of the young Queen’s accession, had thought it so charming an invention! What a marvellous drama it had offered the people, now tragic, now exuberant, now uplifting, always rich in colour, and pathos, and laughter, and the glow of patriotism! In 1897 Britain stood alone among the Powers, and to most Britons this isolated splendour was specifically the product of Empire. Empire was the fount of pride. Empire was the panacea. Empire was God’s gift to the British race, and dominion was their destiny.Or, consider the excuses set forth in this little passage: Not many people doubted the rightness of Empire. The British knew that theirs was not a wicked nation, as nations went, and if they were insensitive to the hypocrisies, deceits and brutalities of Empire, they believed genuinely in its civilizing mission. They had no doubt that British rule was best, especially for heathens or primitives, and they had faith in their own good intentions. In this heyday of their power they were behaving below their own best standards, but they remained as a whole a good-natured people.Their chauvinism was not generally cruel. Their racialism was more ignorant than malicious. Their militarism was skin-deep. Their passion for imperial grandeur was to prove transient and superficial, and was more love of show than love of power. They had grown up in an era of unrivalled national success, and they were displaying the all too human conceit of achievement.Sure. I buy that. Yeah.It also has to be said that occasionally she does try to knowingly mock the empire to show detachment but inevitably slips back into a gloating romanticizing of the empire. The account on Irish history also helped me with my reading of Joyce - another positive for the book. Also, THERE IS AN INDEX!A Non-Intellectual DefenseSo in effect, it is a non-intellectual defense of Empire, deftly done by by providing personal accounts, by telling the reader — “but look, see how swell these guys were?” It is emotional manipulation. And quite effective — It is hard to feel anger towards most of the characters on which the book rides. I feel that is quite a psychologically powerful impression that the book can leave. Even more so for being true, most of these middle-level guys in probability really were swell guys. Niall Ferguson (Empire: How Britain Made The Modern World) should endeavor to learn from Jan Morris.[ About the cartoon - As Japan apologizes to Korea, a group of people from other colonized nations wonders when their colonizers will issue a similar apology. ]Even though cringe-inducingly triumphalistic throughout, this is good historical time-pass. It is recommended in that spirit. As long as the readers stay alert against taking an ideological impression away from the reading of the Empire as a good natured, well-intentioned beast that never knew that it was doing anything wrong and got up and left as soon as it realized.The problem with all such defenses of Empire is that they are inevitably operating on the premise of a false dichotomy — that of being able to separate (or even prove the existence of) positive and negative sides to colonialism. Which is just the wrong way to look at subjugation and exploitation — it does NOT matter if positives were there. Mistakes were made, deal with it. Denialism will get us nowhere. Imperialism was not genial bumbling. Sorry. “Every empire, however, tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate.” ~ Edward W. Said
This is much more episodic than I anticipated, but I liked it. It was sometimes confusing enough that I had to go back and re-listen to the previous chapter, and some of the swooping flights back and forth through time were a little much, but overall I adored it. This is 80% war/soldiery focused, not a lot about technology, and that was a bit disappointing- but the stories of the soldiers and adventurers and rogues and ruffians made up for it. Some clear-cut cautionary tales about why conquering your neighboring country (or countries halfway around the world) is a bad idea. I will look for the next book in this trilogy, for sure.
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It is always a pleasure to read a Jan Morris book even if the subject is of limited interest, but in this case, she is covering an era of which I knew relatively little, the British Empire during the reign of Victoria. She populates the book with a cast of memorable characters, some of whom I had heard of (Gladstone and Disraeli) but many others I had never come across, mainly military. She brings them to life through the quality of her writing. Fortunately she is a prolific writer so there are many more books for me still to read.
—John
This is the first part in a wonderful trilogy of books on the history of the British Empire. But this isn’t the history of facts and figures instead Morris gives us the living breathing Empire full of colour, incident and larger than life people. By trade Morris is a travel writer so she visits the four corners of the globe to bring life to those dry dusty stories we learned at school.As she says “Empire was the grand excitement of the day, bringing into every household, almost every week, intoxicating tales of triumph or heroic disaster. Wars against the Ashanti, the Afghans, the Boers, the Zulus - the Suez coup - the invasion of Egypt - the Phoenix Park murders - the death of Gordon - the epic of Stanley and Livingstone - the tragedy of Parnell - the great Disraeli-Gladstone duel - all these marvelous events, occurring one after another month after month through the decades..... It was like one long and thrilling piece of theatre, with scarcely a flat moment, and a scenario of brilliant daring”We find ourselves plunged into strange and exotic environments which she describes wonderfully putting us right there as it all unfolds. The story is told in chronological order tracing the development of the Empire from a small forgotten about cluster of British possessions to a global powerhouse. She shows this development to be mainly down to two things God and money. Victorian Britain was full of Christian people intent on spreading the word and shaping the world to their own values. Also there were many people mainly men who saw their fortunes lay abroad particularly in the service of The East India Company the organisation responsible for Britain’s trade with India but ostensibly running the country as a form of government itself complete with it’s own army.The Empire appears to start with the campaign to abolish slavery which showed the British they could have an effect on the rest of the world. This then develops to become almost a missionry zeal to expand Britain no matter where or how, taking it’s culture and beliefs around the globe.Morris is never bias towards the greatness of Empire she shows its cruel side, it’s arrogance and it’s tendency to military solutions when it can’t get its own way - the chapter on the treatment of the Tasmanian people is particularly disgusting.She tells the big stories of the Indian mutiny, retreat from Kabul, the problems of Ireland and settlement of South Africa. But the things that really stand out are the chapters on smaller incidents the picture she paints of the Hudson Bay Trading Company holding it’s annual meetings in Canada and the “San Juan pig war” are wonderfully atmospheric and show history as a living breathing thing.Morris’ prose is richly descriptive insightful and often humorous as a travel writer she paints beautiful pictures. The urge to visit these places is in every page.This is the story of a fundamental part of British history responsible for creating the Britain we have now and history buffs should read, but everybody should read these books they tell rich atmospheric fascinating stories.
—Iain
When Victoria took the throne, the seeds of empire were already sown, and yet the very concept was considered anathema by the people of Britain. So what happened to change that? This was the question for which I wanted the answer, which led me to this book. And oh boy does it answer it.My favorite history books are those that don't dwell on names and dates. I need stories, people, cause and effect, motivations... the very things that puts the human element back into the histories. This book does exactly that, and as it does rely on anecdotal elements as much as it does on anything else, there are times when this book reads like a high adventure story. And really, isn't that part of what drew the manliest men of the British Empire to the cause in the first place? That's certainly the impression most people have, and it's partially true. But author Jan Morris digs much deeper and makes the transition of the nation's views seem almost natural and perhaps even inevitable in a weird sort of way. To discover the truths of Imperialism is to discover the darker truths of mankind. For some, it's an excuse for unabashed evil, for others it's very much the "road to hell paved by good intentions." Having seen this sort of thing in the rise of so many powerful countries, throughout history, it's easy to point to things in the aftermath and make sweeping statements about what's good or evil. A book like this makes the reader understand that it's rarely so simple, even when the players involved thought it was at the time. It's so simple, it's complex, and yet the writer slides us through it all with the ease of an experienced tour guide.I'm looking forward to books 2 and 3 of this series, though I have to admit to needing a brief diversion between volumes due to the density of the material. This book packs a punch, and it takes a while to decompress what you're given. It's a worthy read in that it packs so much in one volume without dumbing it down. In short, my kind of history book. Well worth the credit. If the other 2 volumes are on par, then it'll be well worth the 3 credits for the series as a whole.Roy McMillan is a quality narrator, so I'm pleased that he's along for the rest of the series. His manner is engaging so as to keep you involved the whole way through.
—Troy Rodgers
