The British Empire was an astonishingly complex and varied phenomenon, not to be reduced to any of the simple generalisations or theories that are often taken to characterise it. One way of illustrating this, and so conveying some of the subtle flavour of the thing itself, is to descend from the over-arching to the particular, and describe and discuss aspects of it in detail. This book, by the well-known imperial historian Bernard Porter, ranges among...