One Fine Day: Britain's Empire on the Brink

(Paperback)

Available Formats

---

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

'Marvellous...escapes the inane, balance-sheet view of Empire and sees its full complexity' Sathnam Sanghera, bestselling author of Empireland

The story of the British Empire at its maximum territorial extent, including a wider range of voices of the colonised than have ever been recorded before

29th September 1923. The British Empire was 14 million square miles, just under a quarter of the globe's land area, and 460 million people, a fifth of the world's population. In One Fine Day Matthew Parker takes a snapshot of this astonishing edifice in all its glory but with all of its ugly underbelly clearly visible, and with the seeds of its demise already evident.

This book is a new way of looking at the British Empire. It travels from east to west with the rising sun and immerses the reader in the contemporary moment, focusing on particular people and stories from that day, gleaned from newspapers, letters, diaries, official documents, magazines, films and novels. This takes in the new, more independent attitudes of the Dominions to the Empire, resistance and demands for change centred on Rotan Tito in the Pacific, Nehru and Gandhi in India, Tan Cheng Lock in Malaya, U Ottama in Burma, Harry Thuku and A.M. Jeevanjee in Kenya, Herbert Macaulay, Kobina Sekyi and Joseph Casely Hayford in West Africa, and the huge influence of Marcus Garvey across Africa and the Caribbean.

'An engrossing and wide-ranging account of the zenith of the British Empire - with all the contradictions, brittleness, ambition and hubris that moment entailed. Across Continents and characters, Matthew Parker provides a new, global history of British imperialism which feels both epic and immediate' Tristram Hunt

Reviews

Marvellous... escapes the inane, balance-sheet view of Empire and sees it in its full complexity * Sathnam Sanghera *
An engrossing and wide-ranging account of the zenith of the British Empire - with all the contradictions, brittleness, ambition and hubris that moment entailed. Across Continents and characters, Matthew Parker provides a new, global history of British imperialism which feels both epic and immediate. * Tristram Hunt *
Extraordinary. Matthew Parker's magisterial sweep through one day of British imperial history and culture plunges us into the global complexity of the British Empire, bringing the world of a century ago to fresh, vivid life. An astonishing achievement. * Alex Von Tunzelmann *

Author Bio

Matthew Parker is a critically acclaimed historian who has written for numerous UK national newspapers, literary and historical magazines, as well as lecturing around the world and contributing to TV and radio programmes in the UK, Canada and the US. An elected Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, Parker's books include The Battle of Britain, Monte Cassino, Panama Fever, The Sugar Barons and Goldeneye: Ian Fleming in Jamaica. Parker lives in east London with his family.

www.matthewparker.co.uk