Showing the flag
Sir: I would be the first to admit that my book Britain's imperial Century is controversial, even provocative in places: it is meant to be. But John Terraine's review (Spectator, 8 May) makes it seem unduly full of contradictions, curiosities and surprising inexactitudes'. I could sympathise with a reviewer who found himself hard-pressed to assimilate so soon after Publication all the wide-ranging themes of this book. It is harder to overlook Mr Terraine's repeated misreading of my text. For example, 1 did not say that selfgovernment was granted `to Australia' in the 1850s; 1 did in fact in the preceding Paragraph prepare the context of the New Zealand Herald quotation; I had in mind Singapore as a trading bastion not a military one; and I was right about land settlement work in India—it began after 1793 and not 1858 as he seems to think. Moreover, unlike Mr Terraine, having devoted much of my life to the problem and belonging to a like-minded academic fraternity, I believe that some generalisations about the empire can and should be attempted; and the one which shocks him most (about humanitarian pressure) is neither so outrageous nor so ill-supported as he supposes. To have written the kind of bare 'straightforward narrative' which Mr Terraine presumably wants, would, I fear, have bored its author and readers alike. I enjoy ed writing my book, and I hope this Will come across to most readers. Ronald Hyam
magdalene College, Cambridge
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