The brutish empire

Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire by Caroline Elkins Bodley Head, 896 pages, £30

The British empire nominally ceased to exist in 1947, when India and Pakistan became independent (though substantial imperial power endured well into the Commonwealth period). Even 75 years later, though, questions and controversies about it are still rarely out of the news. Harvard professor Caroline Elkins is the latest historian to try to tell one aspect of its immense story. In the introduction, she declares: “My hope is that it [this book] will inform today’s imperial history wars and struggles for racial equality, pushing debates over whether