Ruling continuities: Colonial rule, social forces and path dependence in British India and Africa

The concept of empire has undergone a revival in recent years in the context of debates over American power and hegemony in world politics. Authors such as Niall Ferguson and Deepak Lal have used the British Empire as an exemplar to demonstrate that empires can be benign, engendering social and economic development and enabling democracy. In this article, I argue that British imperialism, far from being benign, in most cases undermined colonial...