PublishedViking, July 2011 |
ISBN9780670918041 |
FormatHardcover, 512 pages |
Dimensions24cm × 16.2cm × 4.4cm |
From Sierra Leone to Fiji, Australia to Sri Lanka, this is a vivid portrait of empire and of men from another age. Made up of episodes from the lives of governors serving around the British Empire, it presents a kaleidoscope of people, places and events.
Drawing on an astonishing cache of Colonial Office dispatches, private letters, diaries and memoirs, governors recall their strange experiences, parade their eccentricities and complain about dysentery as they plan new towns, build railways, draft laws, negotiate with tribesmen, set up schools and hospitals and introduce sanitation systems in the farthest reaching corners of the world.
