Author Description

This book was written in the dying years of the Raj in India and elsewhere. It seeks to explain, from the common person's point of view, what the empire is, how it was created, how it ruled, and the condition of its people. At the time of writing, Britain was hit hard by the Depression and among the questions raised daily in the country were issues of British naval supremacy, empire trade and "imperial self-sufficiency." Ralph Fox argued that British capitalism based on imperial monopoly was in crisis (at the time of writing (1933). He also argued that the question of socialism in Britain was determined by the exploitation of the colonial peoples. There was therefore an intimate connection between national liberation of the peoples of the Empire and the struggle of the British working class. This book remains important in any intellectual historical understanding of theories of Empire. It reflects the understanding of the British Empire and its manifestations primarily in India, and elsewhere, from the intellectual framework of the 1930s.