The idea of the benevolent British Empire is pure myth. From ruthlessly crushing rebellion, to abetting the murders of indigenous peoples, to allowing its colonial subjects to starve, the history of ...

Though the British Empire officially dissolved decades ago, its legacy is still woven into the fabric of many nations across the globe. From language and law to education systems and infrastructure, ...

The British Empire had its origins in the late 1500s. In 1585, Queen Elizabeth I gave Walter Raleigh permission to set up a colony on Roanoke Island, now part of the modern-day USA.

At its height the Great British Empire was home to some 412 million people - 23 per cent of the world's population at the time. By1920 it covered 13,700,000 sq miles.

The British Empire in particular is presented as essential to the appearance of a modern and liberal world order, usually with the argument that the United States should now take up that mantle.

The book’s organising principle is a day—September 29th 1923—when the British Empire reached its maximum territorial extent. The portrait is achieved with a wide-angle lens, but the choice ...

British schoolchildren have long been taught comforting fairy tales about the beneficence of the largest empire in history, but recent historical scholarship is painting a quite different picture.

The Colonialist. By William Kelleher Storey. Oxford University Press; 528 pages; $39.99 and £30.99 ...

Lord Elgin, the British ambassador to the Empire, had successfully petitioned to remove about half of the remaining sculptures from the Parthenon's ruins. But Greece has since contested these rights.