, Columnist
Britain's Imperial Follies
Misunderstanding the past is a good way to stunt one's future.
No, really, this will be good for you.
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Seventy years ago last week, the India Independence Act received royal assent. Suddenly George VI was a much-diminished monarch, no longer king-emperor, and the long twilight of Britain’s shameful exercise in empire had begun.
There’s no reason you should have known this, of course, given how little is taught about imperialism anymore. But British historian Niall Ferguson certainly did. He marked the occasion by crowing that he’d “won," tweeting out a 2014 survey showing that 59 percent of Britons were “proud” of the British Empire.