The contrast between a figure such as Mark Zuckerberg, a billionaire before he was 30, and Alfred Krupp, who spent 60 years building one of the biggest manufacturing concerns in the world, is striking.

But while the British empire is easy to write about, it is very difficult to summarise. This is because what we call 'empire' spans 400 years in time and thousands of miles in space; every continent on Earth was directly affected by it.

There seems to be no end of books about the British empire, and the fascination it holds for historians of all descriptions is inexhaustible.

Kwasi Kwarteng Quotes