Empire [DVD]

The engaging Jeremy Paxman provides an overview of the British Empire, highlighting positive and negative things that occurred throughout a three hundred year period where Britain controlled roughly one quarter of the world. In his typical direct, informative and amusing way, Paxman lets the viewer decide whether the Empire was a force for good or not - overall he seems to sit on the fence.Divided into five one hour episodes, the first "A Taste For Power" asks the question - "How did such a small country control so many people?" Paxman tries to answer it by traveling to India and shows how opulent and grand imagery of Queen Victoria helped created a "God-like" image of the British. Also, he reveals how Egypt was a key part of the Empire, but was technically not a colony. The impact of the charismatic Lawrence of Arabia is illustrated, but the dreadful results are still being felt today as Israel and Palestine have never found a solution since the British-designed Balfour Declaration.Episode two "Making Ourselves At Home" shows how British ex-patriots transformed parts of foreign lands to resemble Britain. Much of local life was blocked out as the British built quaint cottage style bungalows in the hill stations of India. And, up-market sports clubs were reserved only for white men, with Paxman visiting modern day Singapore to see how ex-patriots live today. He shows that the early trend of the British assimilating themselves into the local culture and adopting local practices, such as East India Company officer Charles "Hindoo" Stuart or David Ochterlony - who had more than a dozen local wives each with their own elephant to ride - faded quite quickly.Next, "Playing The Game" reveals how the Henry Newbolt poem saying "Play up! play up! and play the game!" inspired British colonialists to derive a sense of invincibility and courage by adopting the mentality of an unbeatable and daring sportsman - in this case a cricketer batting at the end of a close cricket match. The English public school system created the spirit and ethos of the Empire by providing young men fit for the purpose of working abroad, and Paxman shows that General Gordon became the romantic hero of the Empire, all-be-it that he was killed in a futile and unsanctioned conflict in Khartoum. Interestingly, Paxman interviews the great-grandson of Muhammad Ahmad - the Mahdi responsible for killing Gordon."Making A Fortune" reveals that the sugar trade in Jamaica made Britain unbelievably rich, although the dark side was that it was created mainly by importing slaves from Africa. The opium trade in China led to vast rewards for pioneers such as William Jardine and James Matheson, and gave Britain ownership of Hong Kong which developed into a major port and financial centre. Also, Paxman illustrates the fortune Britain made in weaving cotton and selling it round the world, and how Mahatma Gandhi used the collapsed local Indian cotton industry as a driver for independence.Finally, "Doing Good" shows that Dr David Livingstone was regarded as a saintly figure for trying to bring "Commerce and Christianity" to Africa. It is debatable whether he successfully brought either in large quantities, although many missionaries followed him to the "Dark Continent". Cecil Rhodes took a more direct approach by driving a personal agenda of profit-making in the diamond business to try and build a rail link between Cape Town and Cairo and create a "white" colony across Africa to rival the United States. He achieved partial success by creating Rhodesia, but his plans were ultimately overtaken by the independence of most of Britain's colonies after World War Two, including the dreadful scenes in Kenya with the brutal suppression of the Mau Mau rebellion.Overall, Paxman brings many of the famous figures from the Empire to life, and puts their successes and failures into perspective. He interviews a range of different people, mainly trying to establish if they felt the British Empire was a good thing or not. Of course, this five hour documentary is not long enough to provide a complete answer.

I was looking forward to watching Empire and understanding far more about our imperial roots. The series did allow me to understand more in an engaging way however the structure of the episodes meant it lacked continuity and jumped about alot. I feel the series would of been easier to follow if it had followed a timeline of the empires growth and fall rather than topic based headings that loosely held the episodes together. However one to watch for those looking to understand more about our imperial past

Takes the blinkers off Britain's influence in the world during the period of Empire and who better to cast a quizzical eye than Jeremy Paxman.

Paxman has taken an interesting approach in order to discover the British Empire from a variety of perspectives and thus trying to highlight the ideals, power relations and the forms of organisation at work to both cretae and control such a vast territory. Travelling to a number of places himself, he interviews the descendants of those that still experienced British rule themselves, while interspercing today's points of view with tales about certain historical events that were decisive in the rise and fall of British rule. A DVD that is both informative and entertaining!

Love the DVD, but some points covered are lacking in detail in places (I am a real history geek and apologies for nitpicking). Great buy and I think that Jeremy Paxman does an amazing job.

My partner likes to have something on the TV when going to bed and this used to be on the SKY Q box, but not anymore, so saw this and thought it would make a great Christmas gift.

A superb video Jeremy Paxman at his very best. Entertaining as well as informative and a new slant on how we Created the Empire. Each video lasts for about 50 minutes and holds you spellbound |Quality very good both from filming to sound.A very enjoyable journey and if you are into British History this is a must for you.Terry.

Not had chance to watch more than one episode, but it certainly looks interesting and informative.