Ferguson Empire Chapter Summaries

Part 1 - Book structure and arguments In order to convey the structure and arguments of Ferguson’s Empire, I will split it into two parts. First, I will discuss each chapter in depth, explaining the main arguments and themes of each. Secondly, I will bring it to a wider sense and discuss these characteristics in term of the whole book itself. Ferguson starts out his book trying to explain the underlying reasons that Britain, of all empires at that present time, was able to become an economic phenomenon and transcend into an empire that the world had never seen. Empire starts out explaining that Britain wasn’t the first empire builder and that they actually started out by imitating and appropriating others such as the Spanish and Portuguese.
During this period, British slave traders filled their ship with slaves from Africa and shipped them across the world. Soon, however, as idealist and activists emerged outspoken in Britain, Britain began to take a more religious path. This sense of moral responsibility resulted in slavery being out lawed in the early 19th century. Not only did the British mainland abolish the practice, they sought to apply the new law to every colony in which they held, and even tried to make other empires/countries follow suit. This can be seen as Niall outlines events in which British ships would raid slave ships, those belonging to other countries, that were leaving African ports. Although these practices and polices where working in places such as North America and Australia, in India, they turned out horrendous. The Indian population was just too great for Britain to be able to control them with such little enforcers. As a result of the Brits continuing to police and transform the Indians, a revolt quickly began to sweep the nation. Indians were beginning to believe that the Brits were aiming to Christianize India after several reassurances that they weren’t there to interfere with India’s religious traditions/beliefs. The revolt caused many deaths on the British side whether it was men, women, or children. The Brits, however, soon had their response. Niall’s arguments here consider the fact that although the British preached liberty and freedom, and did many things that were morally right such as outlawing slavery, they still seemed to contradict themselves in India in which they seemed far less tolerant to compared to their many white colonies. In fact, much of India’s civilians were put to work by the Brits in conditions much like that of the slaves elsewhere! Contrary to what it may seem, British rule wasn’t bad in every sense. They actually invested and introduced many advancements to India’s way of life. This