Synopses & Reviews
This concluding volume brings readers up to the death of Winston Churchill in 1965. "Morris has written an unorthodox masterpiece...[a] book filled with superb studies of battles, ceremonies, landscapes, confrontations and, above all, characters" (New York Times Book Review). Index. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book
Review
"The final volume in Morris's trilogy— and tribute—to the British Empire is fittingly subtitled 'An Imperial Retreat.' Opening with Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee of 1897 and closing with Winston Churchill's death in 1965, Morris chronicles the decline and, ultimately, disappearance of the greatest empire the world has ever known. Perhaps one great reason for the Empire's collapse in the relatively short period of 68 years was simply that the British people were never of one mind about it, never completely certain it was a good thing to have so much dominion over palm and pine. And the uncertainty, which began to reveal itself in the Boer War, accelerated after the holocaust of World War I. World War II, of course, saw the Empire's finest hour—and final exhaustion. It is all best summed up in a footnote, where Morris quotes a line from 'Onward, Christian Soldiers': 'Crowns and thrones may perish/Kingdoms rise and wane. ...' Americans might well ponder that line as well as this moving, memorable book." Reviewed by Daniel Weiss, Virginia Quarterly Review (Copyright 2006 Virginia Quarterly Review)
About the Author
Jan Morris served as an intelligence officer with the 9th Queen's Royal Lancers, studied at Oxford University, and was a reporter for the Times and the Guardian before launching into a successful career as a novelist, history author, and travel writer. Her other books include Last Letters from Hav, Fifty Years of Europe, Conundrum, Hong Kong, Oxford, The World of Venice, and Farewell the Trumpets.