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lindsaycaglio's review
2.0
While the topic was of interest to me, this book just didn't hold my attention.
jvan's review
3.0
Informative about some of the ten featured cities but diffuse and nearly formless when speaking about others, it feels as if some of the chosen were put there just to round out the total. The book's a bit obsessed with architectural details, which I understand because it's an import aspect of Imperialist policy, but which I find frankly boring.
inquiry_from_an_anti_library's review
adventurous
informative
medium-paced
4.0
This is a book about the British Empire from the perspective of 10 cities of the world. A colonial past whose morality is in question. Some see the glory and achievement while dismissing the hardships created. Others see only the adversities without seeing the social and physical infrastructure that was built. This is a history showcasing the complexity of the situation rather than just a simple version of ruler and ruled. With all the contradictions and vicissitudes of political philosophies and morals. Colonization was a pursuit to extract wealth from foreign lands, but it would not be prosperous with also developing the infrastructure. A complex process that shaped and reshaped culture and economy.
The book is generally well written, but sometimes has poor flow. The benefit of this book is to show world regions impacted by the British Empire that the reader can become interested in. To understand the role of the British Empire in any given city would require supplementary readings. Therein lies the problem with the book, the missing information. The author sometimes gets lost in describing the architecture of the city or other factors, and neglects the political, economic, and social factors. For some cities there is a plethora of those factors, but for others cities the factors are barely present.
Boston
A fiercely royal city until the revolution. The original English inhabitants were Puritans (Protestant) who wanted to separate themselves from corruption and decay, so fled England and Netherlands. The city was structured as a self-governing commonwealth with a leadership council composed of a network of Puritan merchants and divines. What mattered was not property, but church membership. Intolerance to religious disharmony. As Boston was a trade town, it proved continuously more difficult to maintain Puritan values. It was trade that made Boston have imperial loyalty rather than coercion. For all royal loyalty, they wanted political freedoms based on self-governing assembles.
What started the disputes was British ask of the colonies to pay for their own defense. Resulting in taxes and their repeal. Many claimed to act legally, but were committing illicit trade. The problems precipitated in a Tea Act. Tea shaped what it was to be in the middle-class with all sort of social appliances and applications, but after the taxes, it was seen as a symbol of enslavement and luxury. The Act would also undermine the illicit trade.
Bridgetown
A wild island turned into a well-cultivated market. This city was financed by sugar plantations. Sugar was gathered via slave labor which required a slave market. With the claim that it was the slave market that facilitated the funding of the industrialization process of the British Empire. Even with the dominance relations, slaves were able to become free and become very wealthy. The problems with Bridgetown was the monoculture, which reduced the island’s soil nutrients, leading to becoming uncompetitive with alternative colonies.
Dublin
With the empires political philosophies changing due to the loss of the North American colonies, and increased competition from other colonizers, the British Empire looked to strengthen the internal bonds. To reconsider how they were going to be as colorizers. This is where Ireland played a role. Going from a problem of the empire, to a willing partner of the empire. Because of Dublin’s proximity, it was not an occupied territory. Neither was it allowed to be independent. But dependency on the British caused many religious persecutions and a reduction in the diversity of commerce.
Cape Town
For the occupation of Cape Town, the empire started to focus on commerce. Commerce was acceptable until the violation of indigenous property lands. In trying to contrast themselves as better alternatives than other colonizers, the empire started to distance itself from slavery. Promoting a policy of paternalistic benevolence.
Calcutta
To obtain its wants, the empire made contracts with the Mudgal princes. But shortly after started to break them. Land ownership was reformed, giving permanence to the owners, which raised the price of land, but also reduced the willingness to trade. It was more profitable to be a landlord than a trader. Initially tolerant of multicultural attitudes, but then turned into an ideological imperial righteousness that contained a racial hierarchy. Trade from Bengal was competed away by industrialization elsewhere, forcing India to import finished goods.
Hong Kong
Hong Kong was meant to be a staging area for a broader entrance into China. At this point the empire was determined to encourage trade everywhere, even if other did not want it. In this case, determined to open up China for world trade. For the British, China was at fault for hoarding productive lands from foreigners. Although there were orders not to engage in military conflict, the orders were not observed by the officers. Tensions arose. Chinese officials tried to maintain order and have their laws followed, but the confrontations worked against the Chinese.
The environmental conditions in Hong Kong created conditions for diseases. Killing many people. What kept Hong Kong going was the opium business. But what made Hong Kong profitable was Chinese labor and trade connections. The taxes paid rescued Hong Kong from being financially dependent on opium.
Bombay
From the hygiene and civic problems of Hong Kong came lesson to be used for the planning of Bombay. Bombay was built to represent the empires monument to modernity. Using the modern communications and advancing science to plan the urban environment. Bombay was a multicultural city, but was mired in the dichotomy of ruler ad ruled. Its core trade was cotton.
Melbourne
Melbourne has a legacy of Aboriginal genocide. Gold fields marked its prosperity, while the game of cricket market the test for character. A game that allowed the colonized to take social retribution against the colonizers.
New Delhi
Old Delhi was razed to make New Delhi. New Delhi was recognized as providing much wealth to the empire. Its loss would inevitably mean the unsustainability of the empire. To maintain the grip on New Delhi, the British sought to eliminate civil disobedience by detentions and arbitrary arrests. The very infrastructure was built with symmetry to reaffirm order on chaos.
Liverpool
This city was mismanaged by political division which prevented potential investments into the city. Unemployment and other social factors contributed to the downfall of this colony.
The book is generally well written, but sometimes has poor flow. The benefit of this book is to show world regions impacted by the British Empire that the reader can become interested in. To understand the role of the British Empire in any given city would require supplementary readings. Therein lies the problem with the book, the missing information. The author sometimes gets lost in describing the architecture of the city or other factors, and neglects the political, economic, and social factors. For some cities there is a plethora of those factors, but for others cities the factors are barely present.
Boston
A fiercely royal city until the revolution. The original English inhabitants were Puritans (Protestant) who wanted to separate themselves from corruption and decay, so fled England and Netherlands. The city was structured as a self-governing commonwealth with a leadership council composed of a network of Puritan merchants and divines. What mattered was not property, but church membership. Intolerance to religious disharmony. As Boston was a trade town, it proved continuously more difficult to maintain Puritan values. It was trade that made Boston have imperial loyalty rather than coercion. For all royal loyalty, they wanted political freedoms based on self-governing assembles.
What started the disputes was British ask of the colonies to pay for their own defense. Resulting in taxes and their repeal. Many claimed to act legally, but were committing illicit trade. The problems precipitated in a Tea Act. Tea shaped what it was to be in the middle-class with all sort of social appliances and applications, but after the taxes, it was seen as a symbol of enslavement and luxury. The Act would also undermine the illicit trade.
Bridgetown
A wild island turned into a well-cultivated market. This city was financed by sugar plantations. Sugar was gathered via slave labor which required a slave market. With the claim that it was the slave market that facilitated the funding of the industrialization process of the British Empire. Even with the dominance relations, slaves were able to become free and become very wealthy. The problems with Bridgetown was the monoculture, which reduced the island’s soil nutrients, leading to becoming uncompetitive with alternative colonies.
Dublin
With the empires political philosophies changing due to the loss of the North American colonies, and increased competition from other colonizers, the British Empire looked to strengthen the internal bonds. To reconsider how they were going to be as colorizers. This is where Ireland played a role. Going from a problem of the empire, to a willing partner of the empire. Because of Dublin’s proximity, it was not an occupied territory. Neither was it allowed to be independent. But dependency on the British caused many religious persecutions and a reduction in the diversity of commerce.
Cape Town
For the occupation of Cape Town, the empire started to focus on commerce. Commerce was acceptable until the violation of indigenous property lands. In trying to contrast themselves as better alternatives than other colonizers, the empire started to distance itself from slavery. Promoting a policy of paternalistic benevolence.
Calcutta
To obtain its wants, the empire made contracts with the Mudgal princes. But shortly after started to break them. Land ownership was reformed, giving permanence to the owners, which raised the price of land, but also reduced the willingness to trade. It was more profitable to be a landlord than a trader. Initially tolerant of multicultural attitudes, but then turned into an ideological imperial righteousness that contained a racial hierarchy. Trade from Bengal was competed away by industrialization elsewhere, forcing India to import finished goods.
Hong Kong
Hong Kong was meant to be a staging area for a broader entrance into China. At this point the empire was determined to encourage trade everywhere, even if other did not want it. In this case, determined to open up China for world trade. For the British, China was at fault for hoarding productive lands from foreigners. Although there were orders not to engage in military conflict, the orders were not observed by the officers. Tensions arose. Chinese officials tried to maintain order and have their laws followed, but the confrontations worked against the Chinese.
The environmental conditions in Hong Kong created conditions for diseases. Killing many people. What kept Hong Kong going was the opium business. But what made Hong Kong profitable was Chinese labor and trade connections. The taxes paid rescued Hong Kong from being financially dependent on opium.
Bombay
From the hygiene and civic problems of Hong Kong came lesson to be used for the planning of Bombay. Bombay was built to represent the empires monument to modernity. Using the modern communications and advancing science to plan the urban environment. Bombay was a multicultural city, but was mired in the dichotomy of ruler ad ruled. Its core trade was cotton.
Melbourne
Melbourne has a legacy of Aboriginal genocide. Gold fields marked its prosperity, while the game of cricket market the test for character. A game that allowed the colonized to take social retribution against the colonizers.
New Delhi
Old Delhi was razed to make New Delhi. New Delhi was recognized as providing much wealth to the empire. Its loss would inevitably mean the unsustainability of the empire. To maintain the grip on New Delhi, the British sought to eliminate civil disobedience by detentions and arbitrary arrests. The very infrastructure was built with symmetry to reaffirm order on chaos.
Liverpool
This city was mismanaged by political division which prevented potential investments into the city. Unemployment and other social factors contributed to the downfall of this colony.
em_reads_books's review
Ended up skipping around a lot of this - I was hoping for a book about urban form and architecture but it was more economic and political history. Well written, so worth picking up if that's your thing, but I wasn't feeling it enough for such a long book.
wyvernfriend's review
4.0
Not bad but left me wanting more, this is a snapshot of Boston, Bridgetown, Dublin, Cape Town, Calcutta, Hong Kong, Bombay, Melbourne, New Delhi and Liverpool in the period they were prominent or influential are tasters rather than full courses on the cities involved.
lordofthemoon's review
4.0
It appears that this book has taken me exactly five months to read. Not because it's difficult, or complex, or dull, but I just have trouble with non-fic, especially history. I tend to read a chunk, put it down, meaning to pick it up again the next day and get distracted by a graphic novel or space opera. Still, I'm very glad that I did eventually get through this book, which uses ten cities to provide a breakneck tour of the history of the British Empire, from its first phase in the Americas through its turn towards the east, and right down to its end and the impact on Britain itself.
It's an odd mix, but the architecture of the cities is only ever there in the background and never as important as you think it's going to be, but still, weaving together the history of the cities with the wider context of Empire is fascinating. I wasn't sure what to expect from Hunt, as he seems to be on the right wing of the Labour Party but his history seems balanced. He talks about how the British Empire alternated between waves of free trade imperialism and more traditional conquering imperialism, but is never flag-waving. He never shies away from the dark underbelly of the Empire, particularly the slavery that formed the basis of the West Indies economy for so long, and the racism that was evident in India (and elsewhere), compared with the 'white colonies'.
My knowledge of the Empire has always been patchy, and this book has helped fill in some of those gaps, particularly the broad brush of its rise and fall across a few hundred years and its actions and behaviour in India. Indeed, the Indian chapters were amongst the most interesting for me, especially the comparison between Calcutta and Bombay (as they were then), with New Delhi being the Empire's last hurrah, despite the triumphalism that went into its building and its architecture.
It's an odd mix, but the architecture of the cities is only ever there in the background and never as important as you think it's going to be, but still, weaving together the history of the cities with the wider context of Empire is fascinating. I wasn't sure what to expect from Hunt, as he seems to be on the right wing of the Labour Party but his history seems balanced. He talks about how the British Empire alternated between waves of free trade imperialism and more traditional conquering imperialism, but is never flag-waving. He never shies away from the dark underbelly of the Empire, particularly the slavery that formed the basis of the West Indies economy for so long, and the racism that was evident in India (and elsewhere), compared with the 'white colonies'.
My knowledge of the Empire has always been patchy, and this book has helped fill in some of those gaps, particularly the broad brush of its rise and fall across a few hundred years and its actions and behaviour in India. Indeed, the Indian chapters were amongst the most interesting for me, especially the comparison between Calcutta and Bombay (as they were then), with New Delhi being the Empire's last hurrah, despite the triumphalism that went into its building and its architecture.
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