‘Masterly… This book is dynamite’ – ROBERT GILDEA, author of Empires of the Mind

**Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize**

A searing, landmark study of the British Empire that lays bare its pervasive use of violence throughout the twentieth century.

Drawing on more than a decade of research on four continents, Caroline Elkins reveals the dark heart of Britain’s Empire: a racialised, systemised doctrine of unrelenting violence, which it used to secure and maintain its interests across the globe.

When Britain could no longer maintain control over that violence, it simply retreated – and sought to destroy the evidence. Legacy of Violence is a monumental achievement that explodes long-held myths and deserves the attention of anyone who seeks to understand empire’s role in shaping the world today.

‘Not so much a history book as a book of historical significance’ BBC History Magazine

‘Crucial…as unflinching as it is gripping, as carefully researched as it is urgently necessary’ Jill Lepore, author of These Truths

‘This book is dynamite’ – ROBERT GILDEA, author of Empires of the Mind

A searing, landmark study of the British Empire that lays bare its pervasive use of violence throughout the twentieth century.

Sprawling across a quarter of the world’s land mass and claiming nearly seven hundred million people, Britain’s empire was the largest in human history. For many, it epitomized the nation’s cultural superiority, but what legacy have we delivered to the world?

Spanning more than two hundred years of history, Caroline Elkins reveals an evolutionary and racialized doctrine that espoused an unrelenting deployment of violence to secure and preserve British imperial interests. She outlines how ideological foundations of violence were rooted in Victorian calls for punishing indigenous peoples who resisted subjugation, and how over time this treatment became increasingly systematised. And she makes clear that when Britain could no longer maintain control over the violence it provoked and enacted, Britain retreated from its empire, destroying and hiding incriminating evidence of its policies and practices.

Drawing on more than a decade of research on four continents, Legacy of Violence implicates all sides of the political divide regarding the creation, execution, and cover-up of imperial violence. By demonstrating how and why violence was the most salient factor underwriting both the empire and British imperial identity, Elkins explodes long-held myths and sheds a disturbing new light on empire’s role in shaping the world today.