Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World
How did Britain come to rule the world? asks Niall Ferguson in Empire. What would today's world be like now if it hadn't? Could such an organisation – run by, according to Winston Churchill, 'the greedy trader, the inopportune missionary, the ambitious soldier and the lying spectator' – ever have been a force for good?
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Cast
Seasons
- Ep 1
1.Why Britain?
09-01-200350mIn this programme we learn about the origins of the British empire in the 17th century and how its foundations were laid, not by a grand political strategy but by British pirates,...
- Ep 2
2.White Plague
16-01-200350mThe concept of 'plantation' is explored in this programme, yet presenter Niall Ferguson is not referring to crops but the settlement of British people into the colonies. Without th...
- Ep 3
3.The Mission
23-01-200350mFollowing the religious revival that started in the late 18th century, missionaries began working in Africa and India in an attempt to bring Christianity and civilisation to societ...
- Ep 4
4.Heaven's Breed
30-01-200350mIn this programme we discover how a few thousand British people ruled over India, a country of more than 250 million people and the centre point of the whole British empire. Niall...
- Ep 5
5.Maxim Force
06-02-200350mThe 'Scramble for Africa' by competing European nations during the last years of Queen Victoria's reign is the compelling tale of this programme. We learn how 10,000 independent Af...
- Ep 6
6.Empire for Sale
13-02-200350mThe fall of the British empire is usually attributed to Nationalist groups fighting for independence, yet as Niall Ferguson argues in this final programme of the series, it was rea...
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