Chat Ed : Welcome to this evening's EMPIRE chat with the writer and presenter NIALL FERGUSON!
Niall Ferguson : Good evening to all of you who have been watching Empire. Despite mild jet lag I'm here to answer any questions you may have...
N!k0 : Just want to say congrats on the programme and a good job writing/presenting it :-)
klondyker : Do you feel Britain's image as the evil empire is largely due to its success, and would any of the other potential empires have acted differently in the long term?
Niall Fergsuon : I'd answer your question by saying that in the first instance - in the 17th century - there wasn't much to choose between the various rival empires, but the interesting thing is, and I hope that later episodes of the series will show this, is that Britain's empire became a significantly more liberal empire than the other major European empires. Even in the 18th century Warren Hastings was given an extremely hard time for allegedly misgoverning India. That facility for self-criticism was a pronounced feature of British imperialism. By the 20th century the contrast between Britain's empire and the new empires of Germany, Japan and Soviet Russia were extremely strong. So, perhaps because of its success, or perhaps despite its success, Britain's empire ended up being a significantly more benign empire than the available alternatives.
MarkG : Would you say that economic success is always a key factor in successful (modern) empires, or was it just that this is one of many ways that just happened to be successful in the case of the british Empire?
Richard : Do you see economics as the driving force in history?
Niall Ferguson : That's a great question because it goes to the heart of my argument. It's quite possible to have a big empire and a weak economy - look at Soviet Russia in the 1970s - it's also possible to have a strong economy and no empire at all (think of Germany and Japan since 1945). The difficult thing is to sustain any kind of dominance over other peoples without a secure economic foundation. A key distinction has to be made, I think, between industrial strength and financial strength. Historians used to lay all the emphasis on the industrial revolution, but I wanted to emphasise the importance of financial institutions, which were themselves originally Dutch, in enabling Britain to triumph over her rivals.
shampa : Dear Professsor Ferguson, Having been brought up in Chinsurah and Pondicherry, I was thrilled to note that you gave these small towns their rightful importance so often missed out in conventional history books. I thoroughly enjoyed the entire programme and hope you will host more such programmes.
Niall Ferguson : Great to hear from you shampa. Those are 2 absolutely fascinating places. In many ways I learnt as much from travelling as from reading in producing Empire.
RobinJones : Why didn't the British experience as a colonial power in America develop as it did in India?
Niall Ferguson : The short answer is find out next week! Just to anticipate next week's programme, mortality is probably the key. Indian society was sufficiently in touch with Europe through traditional trade that the people of India were resistant to the various germs carried by European settlers. That wasn't so in the Americas where even relatively densely settled societies (like those of Mexico and Peru) were devastated by disease soon after the arrival of Europeans. There is also the climate factor. New England was a lot easier for British settlers to thrive in than Bengal, so the British themselves didn't necessarily need to behave all that differently, it was microbes and the weather that made all the difference. But, more of this next week...
Josh : To what extent to you think that the Empire was ideologically driven? You spoke about the economic motives in the programme... Was it equally an ideological tool?
glenn : Do you think religion was a factor in any way in the creation of the first British Empire?
Niall Ferguson : Ideology and religion were both crucial but they were crucial in America more than in India. Much of next week's instalment is taken up with the motives of Britons who settled in Northern Ireland, in North America and later in the Antipodes. In the first 2 cases particularly British strains of Protestantism played a decisive role. So too did the distinctive British ideology of 'liberty' - a word which tended to apply much more to the British themselves than to indigenous peoples or to the Africans the British enslaved. Having said all that, I still think the settlement of the New World was in large measure an economic phenomenon too, but it clearly motivated the British to think of themselves as freeborn, Protestant, Britons battling against Catholics, heathens and other inferiors.
Shereen : This is not a question. I just wanted to thank you, Professor Ferguson, for producing such an engrossing program. Keep it up!
Sam : Professor, An excellent programme, I am interested in the post colonial perspective and would be interested to know if you consider that the British did more harm than good by empire.
Niall Ferguson : That's the big question which this series cannot and does not duck. I would never deny the downside of empire. The British enslaved millions, expropriated millions and looked on as millions starved. But, there were also really quite remarkable achievements, which people today tend to forget. In 19th and 20th centuries the British presided over an empire which encouraged free trade, invested billions in the developing world and spread the legal norms, which are indispensable for economic development. And of course in 1940 the British empire was the only thing standing between Nazi Germany and her allies and world domination. So I ultimately argue that the benefits outweighed the costs, although those costs were undeniably very high. What we need to do is to compare the empire, not with some utopian ideal, but with the real historical alternatives that contemporaries faced.
peter baddeley : I greatly enjoyed the programme, but was a little disappointed you did not talk more about the Seven Years War, and figures such as Clive? Surely this was the decive period in establishing the Empire?
Niall Ferguson : In less than 60 minutes of television a large amount of abbreviation is inevitable. There was originally a lot more about Clive that ended up on the cutting room floor. If it's any consolation he gets a much fuller treatment in the book.
RobinJones : At the time of empire building were there any anti-imperialist voices & how seriously were they taken?
Niall Ferguson : Great question. One of the fascinating things about the history of the British empire is that there were nearly always voices raised against the idea of empire, for example, in the same generation as Warren Hastings, the great Scottish economist Adam Smith argued in 'The Wealth of Nations' that the whole enterprise of empire was economically counter-productive. That liberal critique never really went away. Then there were always those who thought it was a waste of money. I think this capacity for self-criticism was one of the distinctive characteristics of British imperialism. Even Disraeli, who ended up an avid imperialist, once said that the colonies were 'millstones' around Britain's neck.
Bruce : How important would you consider the Scottish Enlightenment to furthering the Empire?
Niall Ferguson : It was hugely important. The Scottish Universities and indeed Scottish secondary schools were greatly superior to those of England in the 18th century. The Scots were more literate and more numerate than the English, but living in the relatively barren north of Britain they were also left well off so there was a reservoir of well-educated but economically ambitious, young Scotsmen for the empire-building project to draw on. How far enlightenment ideas influenced the empire is a more complex question, but certainly by the first half of the 19th century Adam Smith's idea of free trade had become a kind of economic orthodoxy for the empire. The fact that, uniquely, Britain's was a free trade empire from the 1840s until the 1930s owes everything to the influence of that remarkable intellectual renaissance north of the border.
Nacho : how important was British 'mingling' with local women in maintaing the global empire?
Niall Ferguson : Probably much less important than the mingling of European and indigenous populations in the Spanish and Portuguese empires. Although a great many East India company employees took Indian wives and mistresses, the percentage of the population that was 'eurasian' was always relatively small compared with the large mixed race populations that arose in Latin America. If one had to generalise one would have to say that the British tended to prefer to marry among themselves than to marry across racial boundaries. That's a point I return to next week.
Jim : What will the series Empire be looking at over the coming episodes?
Niall Ferguson : Next week I look at the process of colonisation - the settlement of North America and Australia in particular. That episode is entitled 'White Plague' for reasons which will become obvious. The 3rd episode is concerned with the extraordinary attempts to export British culture - and particularly British religion - to the empire, particularly Africa. The 4th episode takes the story forward to look at the way Victorian imperialism worked as a system of government and administration. Here the scene shifts back to India and the Caribbean. Episode 5 is dominated by the scramble for Africa - though I call it the scramble OF Africa. Finally, episode 6 looks at how the empire rose and fell in the age of the world wars.
lo : What do you think was the Empires most cruel legacy?
G HAIGH : What do you think was the Empires greatest achievement?
Niall Ferguson : The obvious answer must be the legacy of slavery. More than 3 million Africans crossed the Atlantic as slaves in British ships. Their suffering, particularly in the sugar plantations was beyond belief yet it was the British who did a U-turn and lead the campaign to abolish slavery so there the legacy is ambiguous. Perhaps the right answer would focus on the decimation of indigenous peoples in North America and Australasia, partly by accident, partly by design. We should never forget that the extraordinary economic success of the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand arose from a combination of epidemics, expropriation and extermination.
Shereen : Thankyou Channel 4 and professor Ferguson for such an interesting programme and such an interesting debate.
Neetu : Neil, I must congragulate you on the excellent coverage of the history of the empire. I look forward to reading your book
Upside Down Nose : Cheers Niall!
Riddler : Many thanks
francis : Professor Ferguson: you combine analytical and communicattion skills - what a rare combination!
Jenni : Congratulations Niall!
cdrwolfe : thanks Nial
Rita : Well done, Niall - very interesting.
Niall Ferguson : Many thanks to all of you who have participated in this electronic conversation. Apologies to those who had questions which I didn't get time to answer. Enjoy the rest of the series.
Chat Ed : For more from Niall Ferguson, read an extract from the Empire book that he has written to accompany the Channel 4 series which is available to buy from the Channel 4 Shop priced £25. If you prefer to order by phone, please call:0870 1234 344
