The Great Defiance: How the world took on the British Empire

REVIEW BY ANDREW MULHOLLAND This is a provocative book which will ruffle feathers, perhaps among some MHM readers. But it is also an important one. While the heart of The Great Defiance is historic, presenting an alternative narrative of what is often described as the ‘First’ British Empire, its central purpose is historiographic – to demonstrate that much of the history of this period is distorted. Indeed, author David Veevers closes his volume not with commonplace assertions about the damage the empire might have done, but with one about the damage British scholarship has done. He means to pick a fight here. It is not that Veevers wants to play down the importance of Britain