[PEN-L:33683] Re: the British empire as entertainment

["Carl Remick" <carlremick@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> From: "Ian Murray"
>
> A very Tory kind of history
>
> Niall Ferguson's feel-good television series on the British empire is a 
> blinkered and sentimental romp

I?m reminded of Salon?s interview in November with Steve Earle, the radical 
country rocker and composer of "John Walker's Blues," in which Earle said 
this of Brits? endless nostalgia for their empire:

"... nearly every country in Western Europe has been the most powerful 
country in the world for at least 30 seconds. They've lived through it. 
They've gotten through that to the other side and they know that there's 
life after that. With the possible exception of Britain, who are totally 
defined by their postcolonial self. That's who they are. They're like 
fucking Blanche DuBois. They're just sort of living in this world where 
everybody else is like, 'Yeah, we know you had an empire. We heard about 
your empire.'"

Carl


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