The Lion's Share

It would be tempting to regard Porters study of the British Empire from its mid-19th-century height to its long, slow abandonment as just a very fine textbook. But it is much more than that. For one thing, Porter avoids the staccato prose of most textbooks, preferring assured elegance. Even better, he is opinionated, ironic and daring in his thought

What makes this new edition especially fascinating is a new postscript grappling with the new imperialism of historians such as Niall Ferguson and Deepak Lal, who argue that empire-building may not, in some circumstances, be such a bad thing after all. Porter is not so sure, though there is a sense of elation as he engages with historians who dare to think outside the box. Porter has been doing so for years.

Paul Lay on the fourth edition of The Lions Share, BBC History Magazine

The Lions Share has established itself as the leading general history of British imperialism from its Victorian heyday to present times. This essential introduction has gone through several substantial revisions bringing it up to date with modern events and scholarship. As well as being revised and updated throughout, this fifth edition now has a new final chapter on the repercussions of the Empires after-image, or reputation, in the years since its (formal) death.

Bernard Porter is Emeritus Professor of Modern History at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. He has also taught at the Universities of Cambridge and Hull, and (as Visiting Professor) at Yale, Sydney and Copenhagen Universities. He is the author of ten books and many articles, and a regular contributor to the Guardian, the London Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement and History Today. He divides his time between Hull and Stockholm.