Ghost of a flea: End of Empire

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October 25, 2007

End of Empire

Writing for The Guardian, Maya Jasanoff reviews Piers Brendon's The Decline and Fall of the British Empire, 1781-1997. When did the Empire come to an end? Partition? Suez? Hong Kong? All very interesting, of course.

But this is the bit to which I would like to draw particular attention.

Even while the empire expanded, some were forecasting its decline. A 1774 issue of Lloyd's Evening Post published a futuristic fantasy set in 1974, describing a tour by two men from "the empire of America" through the ruins of London. No less unwittingly prescient was Edward Gibbon, the first volume of whose Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire rolled off the presses early in 1776. His sales could only have been helped when the American Declaration of Independence was signed a few months later.

As Mark Steyn has recently observed, a civilization in decline might be a comfortable place to be almost to the very end. Here is a thought: Future historians might look upon this last American century not so much as a new hegemonic power taking the place of the old but as a continuation of the British Empire. It is now a commonplace the "Anglosphere" somehow carries on England as once it was. I am suggesting something else, a story where the capital moves from London to Washington not in triumph but much as it once moved from Rome to Constantinople. "Byzantium" lasted another millennium; calling itself Rome as the old heart of empire muddled through a Dark Age.

The current splendour of our southern neighbour is a sight for all the ages. Even so, it should be pointed out that until recently a great deal more of the map was painted red. What is left is being whittled away; not so much at the edges but in great rents through the paper where once stood the cities of London, Manchester, Los Angeles, Detroit, Montreal...

Posted by Ghost of a flea at October 25, 2007 07:21 AM

Comments

Regarding the anticipation of the Fall, there's also Macaulay's New Zealander, who sits on the remains of London Bridge, sketching the ruins of St. Paul's. Anthony Trollope wrote a book on a similar subject, which I own (but I haven't read it yet, and it's packed away). Its cover has a sketch of the New Zealander sketching.

And -- lest we forget -- lest we forget! -- Kipling.

Posted by: Angie Schultz at October 25, 2007 01:03 PM